Something To Look Forward To
by Oroburos69
Summary: Sakura's too young, Kakashi's too...different, and neither knows what to do with a real, live friend. They both want one, though.
1. Something To Look Forward To

AN: Necessary information: 1) This story is posted on Archive of Our Own and my LJ page as the "Friendship by Numbers" series. If there's ever a chapter in this story that is relentlessly pornographic, it will be posted on those sites, but not here. 2) This will eventually be Sakura/Kakashi, if I can ever write a romantic relationship instead of oddly intense friendships or PWPs. 3) There is no three. I just hate numbered lists with only two items.

Enjoy.

* * *

"Can you keep it out of my file?" He didn't look at her, but she was used to that. The lack of a book was new, though.

Sakura set down the file in question. "Why?" Her shift was almost over and she wanted nothing more than to go home. She nudged the door shut with her foot.

Kakashi didn't answer. The fluorescent lights buzzed fitfully. One flickered. He was looking at the door, Sakura realized with weary frustration. This was the second time he'd come to her. The first time, at noon, she'd barely seen him. He'd teleported out when she closed the door.

"Why?" Sakura repeated herself, trying and failing to rein in her irritation. She used the last of her sympathy hours ago and was having a hard time giving a damn. She wanted to go home and go to sleep.

Kakashi looked away from the door and stared at his knees instead. "No reason," he murmured softly. His leg twitched, knocking against the base of the examination table. It made a dull, hollow thud. Kakashi shivered.

Sakura sighed and dropped gracelessly into the patient's chair. "How about I promise to keep it out of your folder, but I can talk to Tsunade if it's necessary?" She closed her eyes and wondered if he'd notice if she fell asleep. Probably. Kakashi was pretty perceptive for a half-blind guy.

Kakashi didn't answer.

The scent of chakra smoke stung her nose, and Sakura sighed again. He was gone. She tried to care, but failed miserably. Sakura eased back onto her aching feet and grabbed Kakashi's folder. It was ten. She could go home.

* * *

He was lurking in the dingy grey hallway beside her door. Still no book and Sakura managed to work up enough energy to be slightly worried. "Kakashi," she greeted him. "Are you going to stay this time?"

He waved.

Sakura left her door open when she went in. It was invitation enough, in her opinion.

Kakashi slipped in behind her and closed the door. He was slouching so aggressively that his shoulders were nearly pinned to his ears. Sakura smiled, suddenly a little nostalgic for the days when it wouldn't have been weird to see him.

"Why don't you sit on the couch?" she suggested, heading toward her kitchen—toward her fridge. It wasn't big enough to be called a kitchen.

The couch creaked behind her and Sakura felt a wave of relief that she wouldn't have to fight him over that too. "Do you want something to eat?" she asked, dropping her bag by the microwave.

"No."

Sakura shrugged and grabbed a juice box. She jammed the straw through the foil circle and sucked up half of the juice in a single gulp. "So why are you here?" She sat on her milk crate coffee table because she didn't own any chairs.

Kakashi glanced up and met her eyes for a second. He didn't speak.

Sakura yawned and stared at her bed longingly. "Can you tell me where it hurts?" she asked, figuring that if it worked with three year olds...

"My stomach," Kakashi answered immediately. He paled and looked at the door, like he'd just revealed something awful.

Sakura slurped up the last few drops in her juice box. Kakashi glared at her, and suddenly she felt twelve again. She stuck out her tongue. Kakashi snorted and rolled his eye. She could almost hear Naruto and Sasuke squabbling in the distance.

"So, illness or injury?" Sakura asked, pushing the memories to the back of her mind.

Kakashi tensed up again, she noted with absent-minded regret. "Injury."

"Okay," Sakura said. "Bleeding?"

Kakashi hesitated, then shrugged. "I don't know," he said.

Sakura tilted her head. That was a strange response. "How long ago where you injured?"

"A couple of days ago." His hands flexed, like he was trying to grab on to something.

"On a mission?"

Kakashi curled in on himself. Mostly metaphorically, only his shoulders hunched down, but it was a remarkably clear withdrawal for a man whose smile was a half-closed eye.

Sakura frowned. "...not on a mission?" The hair on the back of her neck rose up in response to a crawling sense of unease.

Kakashi nodded mutely, staring at her door again.

Her lamp cast too much light when Sakura snapped it on. Kakashi flinched. He was pale. "Can you lie down on the couch?" Sakura paused, then corrected herself, "Actually, the couch is too short for me, much less for you. Let's move you to my bed."

Kakashi raised his eyebrow and Sakura shrugged. "I just got off a double shift. I'm not taking responsibility for anything I say."

She thought she saw him smile under his mask, but he didn't move.

"Do you need help to stand?"

Kakashi held out his hands in response. He wasn't wearing his gloves. Sakura grabbed his wrists and hauled him to his feet. She pulled away quickly, because his hands were cold and clammy.

Her bed was only a couple of feet away, but he fell on it like he was exhausted. Sakura winced and wished that she had washed her sheets last week when her mother had told her to. Her unmade bed smelled like sweat and shampoo, and she knew that he could smell it. "I'm going to use a diagnostic jutsu," she told him.

Kakashi nodded, his hair rustling against her sheets. The lines at the corner of his eye looked deeper than usual and Sakura realized that she was worried about him. Strange.

Sakura performed the hand signs slowly, her aching muscles reminding her that she didn't have much chakra left. The final seal completed and a net of her chakra dropped over Kakashi, covering him from his chest to his knees. It sank into him, then wavered.

Sakura's control broke and her chakra dissipated. "In the village?" she whispered, horrified at the implications. There was no way in hell that his injures were accidental.

"You can't tell," Kakashi said,. "You promised, you can't tell." He grabbed her wrist and held it too tightly. She would be bruised tomorrow.

"Actually, I didn't promise anything," she said quietly, fighting back tears. Kakashi didn't need her crying over him. Crying doesn't fix anything.

"Please, just don't tell," Kakashi begged, looking at her with quiet desperation. "No one needs to know."

Sakura swallowed hard. "Is there a danger to the village?" Her voice cracked, because that wasn't quite what she needed to ask.

"_No_," Kakashi said. "No. It won't—it can't happen again." He let go of her wrist abruptly, and stared at her. "_Please _Sakura, don't tell anyone."

Sakura breathed out, then in, taking in the smoky, dusty scent of her shithole apartment. "Okay," she agreed. "Okay."

Kakashi closed his eye and sagged against her bed. "Okay," he echoed her.

"You're dehydrated. There's an infection in one of the cuts. And if you leave it unattended you'll probably die. I can't believe you were walking around, you twit." Sakura thought about the glimpse she'd caught before she'd lost control. "I don't have the chakra to heal you tonight. I'm exhausted. But you won't die overnight, so, if you stay, I'll heal you when I wake up."

Kakashi eyed her warily. "Is that a good idea?"

Sakura squashed a good dozen scathing rebuttals. "No. Going to the hospital and getting treatment from a medic-nin with more than two years of training is a good idea. But I don't think you're going to do that."

Kakashi flinched. "No, I'd prefer not to." He looked away, hiding his uncovered eye with her pillow. "...You can heal me?"

"Yeah." Sakura grabbed her favourite blanket from the tangled mess of laundry in the corner and crawled onto her too short, too old couch. "Go to sleep."

Later Sakura blamed the silent sense of Kakashi's chakra, buzzing in the dark like one third of what she wanted most, forcing her to care. "Why?" she whispered, when she thought he was asleep.

"There was nothing to look forward to," Kakashi whispered back.

Sakura hugged a throw pillow to her chest and felt her age for the first time in months. She wondered if that felt like losing your compassion, one patient at a time. "Do you like cake?"

"Not really."

"What do you like?"

Kakashi was quiet for a long time. "Eggplant, I guess."

Sakura sighed. "Eggplant is gross," she muttered, resigned to taking one for the team. Something inside her thrilled at the thought of 'team' and for once she didn't bother to squash it.

"You don't have to eat it," Kakashi pointed out.

"Actually, I do," Sakura said. "It's my fifteenth birthday next week and I'm going to have a party and you're the only one invited, so if you don't show up then no one will, and I'll have a party with no guests and I'll be _sad_." Sakura licked her lips nervously, then continued. "And there will be eggplant."

Kakashi laughed and maybe it sounded a bit like he was crying. "Something to look forward to?"

"Yeah. Now go to sleep and don't die before my party."


	2. Worth It

She woke up three hours early and lay in bed for four, watching an industrious spider spin a web across her ceiling. Sakura considered catching it and setting it outside, but couldn't muster the energy to move.

She'd begged off training and work for the day by telling Tsunade that she was having a birthday party. She had nowhere to be and no one to see but Kakashi, and he would be late anyway. There was time. It was fine.

Her alarm blared. Sakura hit the snooze button. Thirty minutes until she got to see if Kakashi lived through the week. The thought gave her the energy to roll out of bed and into the shower.

Sakura leaned against cheap, ugly tiles, and closed her eyes. The mildew in her bathroom had grown again, stretching spindly black fingers across the walls. She should clean it.

The water was lukewarm at best, cold at worst. Sakura shivered as it turned from best to worst, and rested her head against the tile. Her bones ached.

The alarm went off again and Sakura shut off the water. She didn't bother with a towel, just squeezed the water out of her hair and combed it with her fingers until her neighbour yelled at her through the wall. Sakura blinked, then wandered into the other room to turn off the alarm with her toes.

All her clothes were dirty, Sakura realized. She bit her lip and sat on her bed. She still hadn't washed the sheets.

The water on her skin dripped down, leaving cold lines and goosebumps. Sakura grabbed her cleanest looking shirt and yanked it over her head. She had four minutes before she would be late and no eggplant. She grimaced and grabbed a pair of pants at random.

Sakura pulled her wallet from her laundry pile and counted her money. She had twenty ryou, enough to buy Kakashi lunch, at least. Not enough for herself, too, but that's what the juice boxes were for.

* * *

"Hey, Sakura," Kakashi said. He pushed away from the wall and slouched toward her.

Sakura stretched her lips in a smile and held up a grocery bag filled with four eggplants and a couple of juice boxes. She had a folded coat hanger, a container of olive oil she'd snuck out of her mother's kitchen, and salt and pepper packets from a poorly guarded restaurant in her pockets. "You're here," Sakura commented. A wave of relief filled her and she clutched at the emotion with only a hint of desperation.

"Happy Birthday," Kakashi said. He eyed the bag with a hint of amusement. "You're cooking?"

"We are," Sakura corrected him. "Come on, let's go." She set out toward Team Seven's old training grounds.

"I'm a terrible cook," Kakashi pointed out. He fell in step beside her, and Sakura felt a rush of something she couldn't name. It was good, though.

"So am I," she told him, ignoring his nod of agreement. "That's why we're going to cut them up, skewer them, and cook them over a fire. That's at least fifty percent ninja stuff, so we can't possibly screw it up too much."

Kakashi hummed thoughtfully. "Do you think that will help?"

"If not, I brought juice boxes," Sakura replied, feeling oddly fine with the thought of failure. She smiled.

"The training grounds?" Kakashi asked, obviously cluing in to where they were headed. There was a bit of tension in his voice.

Sakura refused to hesitate at the hint of disapproval. "It's my birthday, and I'll wallow in nostalgia if I want to. And you have to come with me because I blew my grocery money on these and I don't even like eggplant."

"You didn't have to get them," Kakashi said uncomfortably. "I mean, you could have gone out with your friends. I'm wasn't—I'm not going to..."

Sakura bit her lip to keep from saying something nasty and settled for the truth, "If you hadn't come to my apartment last week, I would have spent today stitching up idiots, healing bigger idiots, and trying not to strangle civilians."

Kakashi was giving her a look. "Ah, civilians?" he prompted her.

"Oh dear me, how sweet of you to volunteer at the hospital. Do you know when the doctor will see me?" Sakura said in a high pitched whine. "Miss? Will you get me a drink? And lunch? And a sponge bath heh heh heh?"

Kakashi made a choked noise. Sakura suspected he was trying not to laugh.

"Or my favourite, 'Why are you pretending to be a ninja, sweetie? It's such a nasty profession,'" Sakura finished. "Of course, that last one was my grandmother, so maybe it doesn't count," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Your family doesn't support you being a ninja?" Kakashi asked in surprise. His elbow bumped into her shoulder in a very discrete show of support.

Sakura snorted. "No. They really, really don't. It got so bad that I moved out. It was better than fighting with them every night." Probably, she added silently. Her apartment's only saving grace was that it didn't pitch a screaming fit every time she came home.

"That's too bad," Kakashi said. He stopped suddenly.

Sakura blinked and realized that they were in front of the posts he'd tied Team Seven to almost three years ago. There were three posts, but she was the only one there. It didn't feel right, but she was getting used to that, sort of. "Okay, great. You get to start the fire, because I didn't actually think that far ahead when I left this morning. I'll...chop these up," she said, looking around for a handy rock to use as a chopping block.

Kakashi disappeared into the trees, presumably to find some firewood.

Sakura found a boulder with a relatively flat top and started slicing the eggplants into thin strips.

The firewood crunched when Kakashi dropped it beside her. "So other than working in the hospital, are you enjoying being Tsunade's apprentice?" he asked. Sakura nearly giggled, because subtle that was not.

"Meh. It's okay," Sakura said. She pulled the coat hanger out of her pocket and unfolded it. "I mean..." Her hands shook for a second and Sakura closed her eyes. "I hate the hospital. Right now I keep telling myself that as soon as I get full accreditation I can quit working there and go back in the field."

Kakashi's hand brushed over her shoulder. "Are you close to full accreditation?" he sounded impressed, Sakura realized with a faint twinge of pride.

"Another four months," Sakura said. She'll be the youngest medic in Konoha when she finishes. "I'll have finished in two years instead of five," she told him, just in case he didn't know.

"That's impressive," Kakashi said.

It made the last two years feel worth it for the first time in months, so Sakura dropped her knife and gave Kakashi an impulsive hug. "Thanks," she muttered into his shirt, quiet enough that he wouldn't really be able to hear it.

He put his hands on her shoulders like he wasn't quite sure how to hug her back. Sakura squeezed him carefully, then let go. "Okay, you can stab the eggplant slices with this," she told Kakashi, handing him the coat hanger. "Then coat them in oil and salt and pepper."

Kakashi straightened the coat hanger. "Will this work?" he asked, testing the point of the wire with his finger. It wasn't very sharp.

Sakura shrugged. "I have no idea. I couldn't think of anything else to do with eggplant." She gave the vegetables a dubious look.

"It's good in soup," Kakashi said, threading the coat hanger through a slice of eggplant.

Sakura cracked open the container of oil and dipped her fingers into it. "All I have for cooking is a microwave, and it only works if I put in the time in intervals shorter than twenty seconds. We're stuck with open flames."

Kakashi laughed. "You've been eating out a lot?"

"Hospital cafeteria," Sakura admitted sheepishly. "It's free."

He shuddered. "That's disgusting. You eat that crap willingly?" He held out the eggplant on a stick so Sakura could coat it in oil.

"Formless masses of grey gruel," Sakura said, wrinkling her nose. She had gotten used to the food and slightly addicted to red jello, but that didn't make it any more appealing. "Hey, if I hold the stick, can you get the salt and pepper packets open? My hands are oily."

Kakashi handed her the coat hanger and ripped the edges off the paper packets. "You know, when you said party, I pictured funny hats and music."

"If it bothers you that much, you can hum," Sakura told him. "And as for hats..." She fished a pair of somewhat squished sparkly party hats out of her back pocket. "I found these in a storage room in the hospital."

"At the hospital?" Kakashi asked, giving them a side long glance. He dusted the eggplant skewer with salt and pepper, then sent a tiny fireball toward the pile of firewood.

"Yeah, I don't know either." Sakura leaned over and hooked the rubber band under Kakashi's chin and settled the hat in his bird's nest hair. It looked idiotic on him and she snickered evilly before putting on her own. "There. It's party town, now."

"I feel the fun." Sakura had no idea if he was joking. He sounded completely serious.

"Do you want a juice box? I've got fake berry and fruit punch," Sakura asked, oiling the rest of the eggplant slices.

"Fake berry would be nice, thank you." Kakashi held the coat hanger over the flames, just high enough to keep the eggplant from lighting in fire.

She grabbed a luridly bright blue juice box from her bag and handed it to him. "Hey, Kakashi..." Sakura said, uncertain if she really wanted to ask. Today was going weirdly well for once and she didn't want to ruin it.

"Yeah?" His eye crinkled up in a smile, and she felt okay, like everything was okay.

"Why...why did you _stop_?" Sakura asked quickly before she lost her nerve.

Kakashi twisted the eggplant skewer a few times before he answered. "I guess...I was ready. I had everything set up. My will was updated, I had a mission briefing the next day so someone would look for me, I'd debated and re-debated the merits of putting down a tarp... I was so _prepared_," he said.

He pulled the eggplant back from the fire and looked at it carefully. "And then I—I _tried_, but I couldn't make myself cut deep enough. It hurt, and I couldn't...I don't know. It made dying not seem worth it, either."

Sakura shivered. "Why didn't you try again? Or just let yourself bleed out? If you hadn't put those stitches in, you would have been dead within hours."

"I don't know." Kakashi said. He hadn't looked at since she'd asked him why. He adjusted the angle of his hitai-ate, mumbling something she couldn't hear, then spoke up, "I don't know why I wanted to die, and I don't know why I wanted to live."

Sakura hugged him because she didn't know what else to do. "I don't want you to die," she told him, hoping that would mean something to him. "And I think the eggplant is done, but the important thing is that I don't want you to die."

Kakashi wrapped an arm around her and held her head against his chest, knocking her party hat askew. She heard fabric rustling and realized that he had pulled his mask down. "It's delicious," he said. His voice cracked.

"Really?" Sakura asked. "I was expecting charcoal-like slime." She didn't move. There were tears in her eyes, and she didn't want Kakashi to see them.

"Do you want some?" Kakashi asked.

"Yeah." She twisted enough to nibble at the eggplant. "It is good," Sakura decided. Very savoury and just a bit chewy. Much better than hospital food. She relaxed her grip on Kakashi, and shuffled back.

"I got you a birthday present," Kakashi said suddenly, like he'd just remembered. He passed her the eggplant skewer and pulled a plastic box out of his belt pouch.

"Oh? You didn't have to," Sakura said happily. No one had gotten her a present in ages. She pealed the lid off and grinned, amused. "Thanks."

"You asked if I liked cake, so I figured that maybe you did," Kakashi said quietly, looking away. He looked a little flushed.

"I do," Sakura told him, lifting the squished vanilla cupcake out of the box. It was her favourite flavour.


	3. Bad Decisions

"Kakashi!" Sakura yelped, scrambling to keep from running into him. She thought about it, checked her watch, and decided that Kakashi couldn't possibly make the next three hours as mortifying as Lee could. "You've got to help me," she begged. "I need your willing participation in an activity I don't have time to explain, okay?"

Sakura could almost see the gossip hounds in the mission room snap to attention, but she didn't have time to worry about that. She only had seven and a half minutes to get to the hospital with someone in tow.

Kakashi snapped his book closed and put it away. "Okay," he shrugged. "Where—"

"Excellent." Sakura grabbed his wrist in a chakra reinforced grip and started running back. "We don't have any time, so just follow me!" She let go of Kakashi before she jumped to the rooftops and started running, hoping that his curiosity would make him follow.

Kakashi caught up with her easily. "I don't need weapons, right?" he asked jokingly. Semi-jokingly, anyway.

Sakura shook her head. "No, you're just going to make sure I come out of the next three hours sane."

"Sounds serious."

"Oh, it is," Sakura said grimly, without a trace of irony. Tsunade thought Lee's crush was hysterical, which led to him being used as the training dummy for medical jutsu far more often than Sakura liked. But not this time, damn it. Sakura dove off the roof into the closest window. The civilian inside screamed, and Sakura dodged around him and into the hallway.

Kakashi caught up amid the echoing sounds of chaos in the room she'd just left. "Have you considered working on your stealth?" he asked with a hint of disapproval.

"No time!" Sakura responded, jumping over a cleaning cart and ricocheting off the wall into the examination room. "I found a training dummy!" she shouted, interrupting Tsunade's conversation with Lee.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kakashi's mask move. Sakura was almost certain that he was mouthing, 'training dummy?' to himself, but he didn't say it, so she was safe.

"Such enthusiasm!" Lee cheered, grinning far too brightly. Sakura winced and looked away. What the hell did he brush with, bleach? "I'm so inspired! I will hold your display of youth in my heart _forever_ and _ever_."

Kakashi gave her a sympathetic look, and pulled out his book. Sakura covered her eyes in shame, well aware that everyone in the hallways outside could hear Lee.

"...Sweet Sakura Blossom of Youthful Konoha, will you do me the great honor of accompanying me on a Voyage of Fiery Spectacles and Thunderous Amazement?"

He was using the hand gestures, Sakura noted in despair, edging away from his outstretched arm. "Lee—"

"Yosh!"

"—Are you asking me to go to the fireworks?" Sakura asked carefully.

"Indeed you are as Wise as you are Beautiful, Beloved Sakura!"

"No," she said. She'd said yes once. Never, _ever_again would Sakura be so stupid.

Lee started to cry. Sakura stared at the ground in abject humiliation, wondering what she had done to deserve this. "Then I shall run a hundred laps around Konoha!" he wailed dramatically, pulling at his gleaming black hair.

Sakura cringed and did what was necessary. "Maybe you should go do that now," she said. "You know...for youth," she whispered, hoping that Kakashi and Tsunade wouldn't hear.

"I will do double, for you!" Lee disappeared in a flurry of flailing limbs, squeaking sandals, and muttered exclamations.

"Is he always so...enthusiastic?" Kakashi asked. He almost sounded worried.

"Pretty much," Sakura muttered through gritted teeth, wishing he'd drop it so she could forget that Lee existed.

"Ah, young love," Tsunade said as she rummaged through the storage closet.

Kakashi hummed thoughtfully. "I could talk to Gai, if you want. Lee's getting a little carried away if he's making you this uncomfortable."

Sakura felt a fragile blossom of hope stir—_Goddammit_! "Do you think that would work? Could you institute some kind of rule where he could only bug me, like, once a week, or—or every _two_weeks?" She didn't dare hope for anything less frequent. "Or get him to want to be my friend instead of—" Sakura's brain refused to complete the sentence, so she just stared at Kakashi pleadingly.

"Whoa. You might not want the friends thing," Kakashi warned her. "That could translate into eternal rivals, and trust me, you don't want that. It's bad."

"I already tried," Sakura said bitterly. "Lee said my fragile blossom of youth was too lovely for his rivalry, or something like that. I think he just didn't want a girl as his rival." She was mostly lying about the last bit, but Sakura hoped that Tsunade would hear. Tsunade had very strong opinions about sexism, and if Lee was in traction then Sakura could out run him.

Kakashi ruffled her hair, probably making it stick up all over the place, but Sakura sighed and let him. Nostalgia was a powerful force. "I'll talk to Gai," Kakashi said. "If anyone can convince Lee to do something, it's him. So what was all that about a training dummy, hmm?"

Tsunade dumped a load of towels on the padded table in the centre of the room. "You didn't tell him?" she asked.

"He agreed to help without knowing what he'd need to do," Sakura said, her heart finally slowing down because she was nearly certain that Kakashi wouldn't back out now.

"What did I agree to?" Kakashi asked. He shifted toward the door as he watched Tsunade spread the towels out.

Sakura stepped in front of the door and leaned against it. If Kakashi left then Tsunade might make her use Lee and Sakura wasn't about to let that happen.

"Sakura gets her first lesson in massage today," Tsunade told him, a lazy grin splitting her face. "So strip down and get on the table, _test dummy_."

Kakashi shook his head. "No way," he refused. "That's just—no. I'm not doing it. I've remembered a very important appointment I must be getting to. I've got to go." Kakashi edged toward the door, not taking his eye off of Tsunade.

"Please Kakashi?" Sakura begged, "If you say no I have to use _Lee_." Sakura hoped her voice conveyed how upset that idea made her, because holy hell, she didn't want to have to touch a naked Lee.

Kakashi faltered, looking away from Tsunade.

Sakura sensed weakness, and went in for the kill. "Think of the eyebrows...and touching!"

Kakashi froze, then grabbed for the doorknob. Sakura slapped his hand down.

"Okay, don't think of the touching," she muttered. "But the eyebrows, you know I have a point here. You wouldn't make me do that, would you?"

"If it means not being naked in front of the Hokage and my former student?" Kakashi hissed, trying to push Sakura to the side. She used chakra to stick to the floor and door. "Then hell yes."

"Did the eggplant party mean_ nothing_to you?" Sakura asked. "Besides, you get a towel and your underwear."

Kakashi slumped against the wall in defeat. "I don't wear any."

Tsunade cackled. Sakura blushed and did her absolute best not to think about it. "Two towels?" she offered nervously.

"...would I get to keep my mask?" he asked.

"Shouldn't be a problem," Tsunade said, raising an eyebrow and giving Sakura the 'we will speak later' look. Sakura shrugged, the heat in her cheeks dying down. The eggplant party was hardly incriminating, even if Tsunade remembered to ask.

"Okay," Kakashi agreed grudgingly. He shuffled away from Sakura like she was going grab him and start massaging right there, and then stared at Tsunade. An awkward silence seeded, germinated, and sprouted into a fine young tree before Kakashi chopped it down. "So. You're going to stand there and watch me get undressed?"

"You've got absolutely nothing I haven't seen before," Tsunade said with the bored conviction of a very old medic. "_Nothing,_" she added for emphasis when it looked like Kakashi was doubting her.

Sakura spun the only chair to face the wall and sat in it. "You've probably got nothing I haven't seen before either," she offered, trying to make the situation better, before wondering why she'd thought that would make it better. Sakura forged onward, bravely questing into embarrassment. "Unless you have six nipples. Tsunade swears there's a clan in Konoha that does, but I haven't seen it."

Utter, dead silence behind her. Sakura swallowed uneasily, examining the plain white wall in front of her with all the intensity of a teenage girl who knows that there's full frontal male nudity behind her that she's not supposed to be looking at.

Tsunade let out a muffled snicker.

"Okay..." Sakura said quietly. "Please tell me that it's not the Hatake clan that has six nipples," she joked weakly.

Kakashi muttered something inaudible and the doorknob rattled.

Sakura swung around, ready to stop him—holy shit. She squeezed her eyes shut. Tsunade had been locking the door. "Sorry Kakashi," Sakura mumbled, even as she committed every mental resource at her disposal to memorizing that brief glimpse. _Significantly_superior to the nothing she hadn't seen before.

"They're...um...mostly invisible, unless you're looking for them," Kakashi said, sounding like he was being strangled by his own embarrassment, and Sakura realized that the Hatake clan did, in fact, have the weirdest blood limit in Konoha.

The little bastard inside her that sounded like Naruto poked her and Sakura caved. "Are they on your face? Is that why—?"

"No they aren't on my—! Can I still change my mind—?" Kakashi protested. Sakura could almost taste his embarrassment. It was _awesome_.

"Got your clothes," Tsunade said though her laughter. "Get on the table, nipple boy."

"...how?" he asked.

"On your stomach. We'll do a slow reveal," Tsunade decided, and Sakura had to muffle her laughter into her fist. Tsunade had a bedside manner that was hysterical for anyone who wasn't her patient, mortifying for those who were. "Excellent. Sakura, your virgin eyes are safe."

"Virgin eyes? You had me running STD tests all last week," Sakura protested. She turned around, then paused and tilted her head. "Huh. Small towel," Sakura said contemplatively. Kakashi was blushing all the way down his back, how weird was that?

Tsunade beamed at Sakura and waved her over. "Slowest striptease I've gotten all year," she said casually, laying her hand in the middle of Kakashi's back. "But good choice in grabbing Kakashi. He has a lot more old injuries than Lee does."

Sakura nodded, scanning Kakashi's back and noting the many scars. "Will we be working on the scars today?" she asked, poking at a broad white line that ran from Kakashi's shoulder to the opposite hip. Tiny perpendicular lines showed that he had torn the stitches out at least once.

"I don't have enough time, but if you can convince him to meet up later, feel free to practice on Kakashi. He's got plenty of scars, and several of them are causing him pain or stiffness," Tsunade informed her. "Now, name the three types of massage that are exclusive to Konoha or medic-nin."

"Chakra healing, Tenketsu Shiatsu, and Amma," Sakura listed, ticking them off on her fingers as she went.

"Name the fourth type that we don't acknowledge publicly, but still use for muscle strain," Tsunade ordered.

"Flaming Spring Blossoms of Youth Massage," Sakura replied promptly, "...and every time I say that, it sounds more like a brothel."

Kakashi shifted restlessly. "Gai developed a form of massage?" he asked.

"And to our eternal regret, it was actually useful. I'd have him working in the hospital if I didn't think it would make ninja avoid the hospital." Tsunade paused. "You know, more so. Anyway, good work, I assume you read up on the basics?"

"Yes for the first three, sort of for the last one," Sakura said. "I mean, I studied the pictures but—"

"Don't worry, no one actually reads the writings. I can teach it to you, though." Tsunade grimaced. "Practically had to re-grow my eardrums, but I can teach it. _And_the prisoner cracked like an egg, so it was really a good day all round."

"Trying to convince yourself?" Sakura asked.

"Hell yes. Now let's get started before the need for a drink overwhelms my good sense. See here?" She stabbed a finger into the skin about half way down Kakashi's back. He yelped and wiggled, the towel covering his ass sliding down to indecent levels.

"Un-huh," Sakura said, allowing herself a blatant stare at Kakashi's butt. Damn. "Latissimus Dorsi?"

Tsunade snapped her fingers, dragging Sakura's attention back to her. "Easy to tell when there's so little body fat, eh?"

Sakura nodded. "Yep." _So_much better than Lee. Not that Lee had body fat, but Kakashi must have been at the front of the line when they were handing out hot. Wearing a shirt should be a crime for him—though if Kakashi really did have six nipples, Sakura could kind of understand. Maybe.

"Speaking of which, I'm not exactly pleased that I can count all your ribs, Kakashi," Tsunade informed him. "Anyway, we're starting here. Mimic the position of my hands on his other side," Tsunade ordered. She grinned at Sakura, and gave her a slow wink that was somehow more embarrassing than anything else that had happened today.

Sakura put her hands in position, then frowned. "Kakashi, are you warm enough?" His skin was chilled.

"I'm a bit cold," he admitted, his voice muffled by a combination of mask and towels.

"Just a sec," Sakura said, ignoring Tsunade's eye-roll. She grabbed the space heater from the storage closet and plugged it in, then slapped her hands back into place over Kakashi's back. He twitched. "Okay, ready!"

"Alright, figure out what wavelength Kakashi's chakra is at right now, and adjust yours to match it," Tsunade ordered.

Sakura sent out a thin line of chakra into the nearest coil and started counting. "Sixteen millimetres," she muttered after a second, speeding up her chakra to match. Kakashi must be nervous, that was a short wavelength given that he was resting.

Tsunade drew her left hand down Kakashi's ribs, setting it at his waist. "Follow my movements, using a veneer of chakra over your hands." Tsunade nodded her approval when Sakura obeyed, and continued, "All right, three major things that the scrolls wouldn't have told you. This is a great opportunity to give someone a full medical exam without them noticing, don't ever use your full strength unless you feel like breaking bones, and if anyone ever asks about 'happy endings' you get a free pass to use them for whatever experiment you have in mind."

Sakura frowned. "The scrolls said that full strength might be needed on occasion," she pointed out. They had said so clearly, several times.

"For normal people, yes. For you and me? Not so much. Your chakra enhanced strength is developing rapidly, and your natural strength is following suit. Incidentally, be more careful with civilians. There were three complaints last week about bruises from you touching them."

Sakura shrugged, following the slow pattern Tsunade was tracing on Kakashi's skin. It almost outlined his chakra system, with the occasional deviation for major muscle groups. "They're lucky I only bruised them. They were trying to flirt with me."

Tsunade chuckled. "You had three people flirt with you while you were doing STD tests?"

Sakura sighed. "It's like they forget that I know exactly how diseased they are," she said. It was funny now. Then, not so much.

Her chakra suddenly cancelled out. "Crap," Sakura muttered, realigning her wavelength to Kakashi's, doubling the amplitude through constructive interference, but avoiding the cancellation effect of destructive interference.

"That's another thing you'll need to watch out for," Tsunade informed her. "Patients' chakra can do strange things when you interfere with it this much. It isn't harmful in this case, but watch for it."

Sakura concentrated, and found the strange blip that had sent her chakra out of sync with Kakashi's. "What is that?"

"I haven't the faintest idea, no one does," Tsunade admitted. "Now, see if you can give Kakashi a full exam without being blatantly obvious about it."

"He needs more sleep," Sakura said. That was always the easiest thing to tell. "And water, and food," she added after a second. Also easy, and she'd managed to keep her hands following the same pattern that Tsunade was setting. "And to either start taking multi-vitamins or double up on them."

"Good. Now poke around at his chakra system and tell me what you find," Tsunade said.

This was a bit more difficult. Sakura found herself hesitating as she tried to check Kakashi's chakra system while maintaining the same pace as Tsunade. "Okay..." she muttered. "His chakra system is...empty, maybe? It's like it's supposed to hold a lot more chakra than it does. But the energy that is there seems denser than normal or something."

"All three are true," Tsunade said. "Now, why are they true?"

Sakura spread out the sensor net she was using. "...the sharingan draws chakra constantly?" she asked in disbelief. "How is he even alive?"

"You should see it when it's uncovered," Tsunade told her. "The drain is amazing. Most people would probably have died within a year from chronic chakra exhaustion."

"It's not _that_bad," Kakashi muttered lazily. He sounded about two steps away from falling asleep.

Sakura watched the rate of chakra drain into his left eye. "You do know that about forty to fifty percent of your chakra is going toward maintaining your eye, right?"

"Okay, so it is that bad, but it was a gift," Kakashi said.

"Mmmhmmm," Sakura said doubtfully. She didn't really see the logic. "It would be interesting to see if compensating by eating or sleeping more would help. I think maybe you need to."

"Good luck with that," Tsunade said. "He's been underweight since he was ten." She lifted her hands off Kakashi's back and moved down to his feet. "If the patient seems really twitchy, start off with their feet. Many shinobi are more comfortable when you don't have your hands near their neck or spine."

"And civilians?" Sakura asked, joining Tsunade at the foot of the table.

"Fuck 'em," Tsunade said.

Sakura snickered. "Really?"

"Yeah. They aren't usually dangerous and are here by choice, unlike shinobi. If they're uncomfortable, they can request someone else to do their massage. They don't have enough chakra or bad enough injuries to make most of what I'm teaching you necessary, either."

Kakashi flinched when she touched his foot. "I thought you said most shinobi were less twitchy with feet?" Sakura asked for confirmation. She had a completely different angle for staring at Kakashi now, but it was no less...inspiring.

"It tickles," Kakashi mumbled. "And it feels weird."

Right, massaging feet. "Should I try to do a physical, too?" Sakura asked, pressing her palm to the ball of his foot and sliding her other hand over the heel.

"Visually, yes. But for right now, check for range of motion in his ankle," Tsunade replied, pressing Kakashi's foot downward, toward his shin, and pulling it back down. "Incidentally, there's a pressure point on the upper edge of the arch of the foot. The medial plantar nerve coincides with a major tenketsu, and if you press down on it with a bit of chakra—"

Three things happened more or less simultaneously. Sakura located the pressure point that Tsunade had mentioned, and she gave it a chakra enhanced poke. Kakashi yelped, kicked his foot free of Sakura's hand, and squirmed halfway up the table to get away. His towel didn't survive the journey. And the third thing? Tsunade finished her sentence.

"—You can cause an instantaneous orgasm. As you've found out." Tsunade used her hold on Kakashi's foot to drag him back down the table, chuckling with only a hint of schadenfreude.

"Right," Sakura said, feeling relatively certain that her face was going to combust in another moment or so. "Sorry, Kakashi."

He buried his face in a pile of towels. "No problem," he muttered, and Sakura tried her best to ignore the fact that Kakashi's voice had dropped an octave.

"You know, I've been meaning to teach Sakura those pressure points, and they happen to be an excellent way of encouraging chakra production," Tsunade said with faked innocence that wouldn't fool a blind man. Or a deaf one, for that matter.

"Kakashi didn't really sign up for that," Sakura protested, though truthfully, she wouldn't mind continuing. After the first rush of embarrassment, it had been kind of cool, drawing a reaction like that. "I mean...okay, I can't think of a better test dummy, and if you make me use Lee for testing pleasure pressure points, I swear on the Hokage Hat that I'll go missing-nin—"

"If I say I don't think I'd mind, is that going to get me a free pass for whatever experiment you want?" Kakashi asked cautiously, pulling his head out of the pile of towels and glancing at them over his shoulder. He was flushed, but he looked more alert that usual. Of course, some species of sloth looked more alert that Kakashi usually did.

"Actually, no. Tsunade offered, you didn't ask," Sakura said. She stared at Kakashi in confusion, because she hadn't thought he would _want_...

"It did feel good," Kakashi pointed out defensively. "You don't have to look at me like I've grown another head just because I want more." He looked away and set his head back down, obviously taking himself out of the conversation.

Sakura blushed, and remembered what Kakashi spent most of his time reading in public. Perhaps it wasn't so odd.

"Excellent, everyone agrees," Tsunade said cheerfully. "Now I've only got two hours and forty-five minutes to finish teaching Sakura the basics of chakra healing massage, tenketsu shiatsu, and pressure points. Let's get started."

His foot twitched when Sakura picked it up, and she had to squash the urge to run her thumb along the ball of his foot and send her chakra through his tenketsu.

"Interestingly, there's no less than three pressure points that can provoke a similar reaction located in and around the foot," Tsunade said, pressing her thumb down along the arch of Kakashi's foot.

"Just out of curiosity," Kakashi said, "how many are there in total?" The pinkish flush was starting to fade from his back, Sakura noticed. And he hadn't replaced the towel that had been the last bastion of his modesty. She noticed that too.

"About forty-two," Tsunade replied. "Now put your thumb in the hollow of his heel on the side of his foot. This is the medial plantar nerve again. Slide your thumb until the tip of it is pressed against ankle bone. Now send down a chakra thread from the centre of your thumb."

Kakashi didn't kick free of her hand this time. Instead, his toes curled up and every muscle in his back shifted and flexed. Sakura knew she was smiling like an idiot, but it was just so cool. "_Awesome_," she whispered, delighting in the color that was spreading across his back.

"Fun, isn't it?" Tsunade asked. "But if you increase the energy of your chakra to more than double that of his, it causes an equal amount of pain. Then it is a very effective torture tactic instead of an obscure form of therapy for chakra exhaustion."

Sakura nodded, and double checked to make sure she was matching Kakashi's chakra closely. "So what's next?"

"The last one on the foot we'll have to roll him over for," Tsunade explained, "So we'll move up to the leg. The back of the knee actually has six tenketsu. Savor that information, because it took three weeks of bargaining with the Hyuuga clan before they agreed to mark them on a scroll. Five of the tenketsu are located over the tibial and common peroneal nerves. Arrange your fingers so that three are placed over the tibial and two over the peroneal nerve. Now send out chakra through all five fingers."

Tsunade had to put her hand on his back to keep Kakashi on the table. He groaned, shuddering under their hands, arching and almost thrashing. He wasn't trying to get away.

Sakura sucked in a desperately needed breath and prayed that neither of her teachers could sense how turned on she was. Given who they were, though, that was probably a lost cause. "So, if you extend the period of time that you add chakra to the system, would it increase the effects?"

Tsunade's smile was actually an irredeemably perverted smirk. "Try it and see."

This time, Sakura started more slowly, gradually increasing the quantity of chakra she was imputing into Kakashi's system. He started shivering at about half the amount she'd used in the initial spike. Sakura slowed the rate of increase then, drawing it out. It felt like titration, adding the last drops slow to get the exact result needed and no more. Sakura liked titration.

"Fuck," Kakashi hissed, squirming and rocking against the table, fighting against the weight of Tsunade's hand. "More? Please." He was sweating, and Sakura had to hold his leg down to keep her hand over his tenketsu. "Sakura—"

Sakura increased the volume she was adding, focusing on the buck and shift of Kakashi's hips and the darkly shadowed area below, the gleam of sweat beading up on his skin, and the pink tinge that colored his pale, pale skin.

"_Please_," Kakashi gasped, grabbing at the towels underneath him and ripping them, the sound of shredding cotton loud in the quiet room. "_Sakura!_"

Sakura licked her lips, tasting salt. She was sweating. The space heater was making the room too warm. She increased the flow of her chakra incrementally.

"Fuck!" Kakashi choked out, and Tsunade had to hold his head against the table to keep him from hurting himself. "Just _do_it!"

Sakura shook her head, trying to get her hair out of her eyes. She wanted him to call her name again. She lowered the flow a tiny bit.

"Sakura!" he cried, straining _beautifully_against the hands pinning him down.

It was _easy_ to double the amount of chakra she was pouring into him. Easier still to triple it when Kakashi started growling and snarling and trying to fight his way to his hands and knees. Sakura reinforced her grip with chakra and watched, her eyes wide as she tried to memorized what Kakashi looked like, how he sounded, the feel of his skin and the smell of his sweat. It was because of her. He was like this because of _Sakura Haruno_.

Fucking_ shannaro_, bitches.

"Sakura." That was Tsunade. Sakura had to listen to her. "Stop."

She stopped the flow of chakra and swayed, dizzy. Kakashi made a sound that she secretly classified as a sob and sagged against the towels, shaking violently.

Tsunade snorted. "So? Does drawing it out increase the effects?"

Sakura nodded, and wondered if it would be too obvious if she left the room right now. "I'd say yes."

"...wanna die..." Kakashi muttered, and Sakura's heart jumped in fear. She'd kept her chakra on the same wavelength, right?

"What?" Tsunade demanded, rolling him on his side so she could see his face. The towels underneath him were...yeah, he'd probably enjoyed at least part of it. Also, that was almost definitely an extra nipple. "_What _did you just say?"

"...if it ever comes up..." Kakashi said, blinking very slowly as his breathing returned to normal, "...that's how I want to die. Only surrounded by my porn collection instead of in a hospital. Can I put that in my living will?"

Sakura giggled, feeling a tiny bit hysterical.

"Brat," Tsunade sighed, setting him back down. She stroked his hair gently, rousing a contented mumble. "How about we give you a break for a couple of minutes? Get you something to drink, and some new towels."

"Mmm. These ones are wet," Kakashi agreed sleepily.

Tsunade laughed. "I noticed," she told him, dragging a sheet out of the storage closet and draping it over Kakashi. "I'll go get you some water. Sakura will change the towels." She beamed at Sakura's grimace and added cheerfully, "It builds character."

The door clicked shut behind her and Sakura was alone with Kakashi.

"You okay?" he asked after a minute, jerking Sakura out of her daze.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Are you?"

"I haven't felt so good in...I can't remember. Long time," Kakashi replied. "Thank you. I know this is weird, and we're probably going to be weird around each other for ages, and it was probably a bad idea—"

"Nah, it won't be weird," Sakura cut him off, waving her hand dismissively.

He rolled onto his side and peered at her from under a shock of unruly white hair. "Really?" Kakashi asked hopefully.

"Yeah, really," Sakura told him with confidence. "I spend, like, all of my time acting like I've never had a close up look at people's genitals when I meet them in the street. And if I can manage that with Mr. Green-Penis, I'm pretty sure I can manage it with you."

"That's good," Kakashi said, resting his head on his arm. "I really enjoyed the eggplant party and I don't want us to be uncomfortable, but I'm finding it hard to regret the last half hour."

"It was fun. Tsunade tried to teach me this stuff before, with someone else I cannot name because of medic-patient confidentiality, but he made the _weirdest_noises and Tsunade had to cancel the rest of the lesson because she was laughing too hard to talk," Sakura said. "He sounded like a water buffalo," Sakura reminisced, her face screwed up in remembered disgust, "...but don't tell Tsunade that I told you that, okay? The medic-patient confidentiality thing is important."

Kakashi snickered, then broke into a yawn. His mask slipped down his nose a bit, but stayed determinedly in place. "My lips are sealed."

"Good." Sakura stood up and stretched out. "I'm going to get you some fresh towels. Is there anything else I can get you?"

"A wet washcloth?" he asked. "And how hot do you think the room would have to be to get Tsunade to take off her jacket?"

Sakura laughed, "The first I can do. The second, we'll see, but I will confirm—" she leaned in and whispered the next part in Kakashi's ear, "—that Tsunade's boobs are _amazing_. Natural wonders of the world, swear on the Hokages' graves."

"You've seen them?" Kakashi asked, his eye bright with childlike wonder.

"Yes," Sakura said, "I was both humbled and awed." She pulled a second stack of towels from the storage closet and dropped them by the table. "I'll be right back." Sakura grabbed the top towel and went into the attached bathroom and wet it down.

"Maybe you could use henge," Kakashi suggested. "To share the knowledge."

"Whoa," Sakura said, jerking the sheet off him and dropping the wet towel on his side. "There're female solidarity laws about that."

Kakashi yelped and wiggled half-heartedly. "You used cold water? Did I piss you off?"

"Actually, I didn't think about it. Now stand up and get cleaned off before I start counting nipples," Sakura ordered, picking up the clean towels and shooing Kakashi off the table.

"Hey, don't make fun of my socially crippling deformity," Kakashi protested, stumbling a bit as he stood and turned to face the wall.

"The socially crippling deformity that's only visible if you're really looking for it, and can easily be covered up with clothes?" Sakura asked, cursing Kakashi's mostly useless modesty. She really wanted to see. The dirty towels made a pile in the corner, and Sakura hoped that the bitchy cleaning lady would have to pick them up.

"I suffered adolescent angst over it. I'm entitled to consideration," Kakashi replied, dabbing tentatively at his stomach with the towel.

"Meh," Sakura said dismissively. "You get consideration from strangers, not friends."

"Friends?" Kakashi said, looking over his shoulder at her. His eye conveyed surprise, and maybe a bit of happiness. Sakura hoped it was happiness, anyway.

"Well, the last time someone came by my apartment after my shift and tried to get me to heal them, I broke their jaw," Sakura admitted. "Then I screamed at them and called them a peeping tom so I wouldn't get in trouble."

"I guess I don't go to just anyone's birthday party," Kakashi mused thoughtfully. Sakura was almost certain that he was smiling.

"See? And I certainly don't blow my grocery budget on eggplant for just anyone, so we must be friends," Sakura concluded, smoothing down the last of the new towels.

"Must be," he said, and damn if an entire colony of warm fuzzies didn't suddenly explode in her chest. Stupid nostalgia.

"You can lie back down, if you want," Sakura offered.

Kakashi threw the wet towel over his shoulder and it landed perfectly on the pile in the corner. "You wouldn't be watching and waiting, ready to count my nipples, would you?" he asked suspiciously, sending a wary glance over his shoulder.

"...no," Sakura muttered, turning around to face the wall. "But real friends let friends count their nipples."

The towels rustled as he lay down. "Let's test that. Let me count _your_nipples," Kakashi said.

"Hell no." Sakura retorted.


	4. It Seemed Funny at the Time

"Long story short, that's why no one uses this particular form of therapy anymore," Tsunade concluded cheerfully, showing Sakura how to temporarily paralyze Kakashi from the neck down without removing his ability to feel sensation.

"I feel so safe," Kakashi muttered into his towel.

Sakura patted him on the back and mimicked the hold that Tsunade had just showed her. "So just a little spike...?" she asked, gathering a tiny bit of chakra in her fingertips.

Tsunade nodded and pushed a lock of stray hair out of her face. "And use it to block his chakra flow. Go for it."

Sakura released the gathered chakra into Kakashi's spine.

He grunted and went limp. "It feels weird," Kakashi complained, a trifle anxiously.

"Alright, now remove your chakra," Tsunade told Sakura.

Sakura tugged her chakra back into her hand. "Why did blocking his chakra stop movement?" she asked curiously, watching Kakashi curl his fingers and toes. He gave a relieved sigh, then went still. "His nervous system should still have been active."

"True," Tsunade confirmed. "But by the time most ninja become chuunin, they're instinctively augmenting many natural processes with chakra, especially movement. Blocking that augmentation leaves their bodies confused and their nervous systems are unused to working alone. Their body spends a while scrambling to catch up. If you leave the block on for more than a few minutes most ninja will be able to move again, albeit slowly. It doesn't block sensation because there isn't a single ninja I can think of who augments their sensory system the same way they augment their muscles."

"Speeding up reception to pain isn't on their list?" Sakura asked.

Tsunade grinned. "A lot of ninja actually slow or dull their ability to sense pain. The Torture and Interrogation Department uses chakra disruptors for exactly that reason." She frowned thoughtfully and glanced over at Kakashi. "I think we're done with this side," she said, pulling off her jacket and tossing it in the corner. "Time to flip him over."

Kakashi tensed up, craning his head around to peer up at her. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to paralyze me again?" he asked, grabbing onto the edges of the table with a white knuckled grip.

"Suddenly feeling modest, eh?" Tsunade said, prying his fingers loose and rolling him over. Kakashi managed to drag the towels with him, covering himself from neck to knees.

"What are a few extra nipples between friends?" Sakura teased him, grabbing the edge of the top towel and tugging at it.

Tsunade snorted. "_That's_ what this is about?" She poked Kakashi in the ribs disapprovingly. "Completely naked from the neck down, and you're fine, so long as you're on your stomach?"

"In my defence, I was thinking less than clearly at that point," Kakashi pointed out, clinging to his towels with chakra and fingers. He smiled awkwardly under his mask and glanced at Sakura out of the corner of his eye.

Sakura sighed. "Kakashi, seriously. I've gotten you off, like, fifteen times in the last hour and thisis where you draw the line?"

He flushed a brilliant red that extended down his shoulders and down what little of his chest Sakura could see. His mask was lopsided, showing a bit more of Kakashi's cheek that it usually did. "Fine," he muttered, looking away from her and closing his eye. The embarrassed flush didn't fade, and neither did his grip on the towels.

Sakura decided she should probably try having a bedside manner or something. "Look, I'm not going to mock you, and I'm not going to tell anyone. Freaking relax already."

Tsunade snorted, "You do my heart proud, Sakura."

"I _know _that," Kakashi said defensively. "It doesn't mean I want you to..._see_," he said 'see' like it was the worst thing he could imagine and Sakura suddenly realized that 'adolescent angst' hadn't been an exaggeration, and maybe hadn't ended with the teenage part of his life, either.

Sakura looked at Tsunade and shrugged helplessly. She was horrible at this part of the job. If it had been anyone but Kakashi she would have yanked the towels off without a second thought. But...it was Kakashi. Sakura had no idea why he was different, he just was.

"Goddamn ninja and their psychological issues," Tsunade muttered the third line of the medical-nin's litany in irritation. "Fine. Put your arms over the towels and we'll work on what we can see."

Kakashi swallowed hard and slipped his arms out from under the towels, laying them at his sides. His hands were shaking.

Sakura rested her hand on his wrist and winced. Kakashi's heart rate was significantly above 120 bpm. She gave Tsunade an uncertain look. Kakashi had been reluctant and nervous earlier, but not panicked.

Tsunade frowned, but reached down and picked up Kakashi's hand. "We'll start on massage," she said. Her voice was lower than normal.

Sakura nodded and took Kakashi's other hand. She slid a wave of chakra under his skin, stroking the rapid flow of chakra that was vibrating through his fingers. Kakashi's chakra slowed from pre-battle levels to ones that could be explained by anxiety, and he squeezed her fingers for a quick second.

"Hands are a tricky area," Tsunade began. "They're one of the most sensitive areas on the body and the most important weapon of a ninja, and that often gets exploited by our enemies. You may find that ninja are unsettled or uncomfortable having their hands held, especially if they don't know you. Nevertheless, that sensitivity makes hands one of the easiest ways to draw someone into relaxation." Tsunade drew her thumbs across the centre of Kakashi's palm.

Sakura followed suit, testing various levels of pressure until she found one that drew a pleased exhale of air from Kakashi.

"Focus on the centre of the palm and the pad of the thumb. Do not grip the fingers or thumb at any point. Many ninja will fight that," Tsunade advised, setting Kakashi's hand down and adding more oil to her hands. She offered the bottle to Sakura and gripped Kakashi's hand between hers again.

"Generally, massaging someone's hands is done to calm them down enough to let you work on the affected area of the body," Tsunade said, "and the effectiveness of that varies greatly between patients. But massage can be helpful in cases where the soft tissue of the hands was injured. Just remember to lighten the pressure significantly and use a great deal of oil or lotion. Chakra should be your first resource in a hand injury, and you should monitor the hand constantly to ensure that no further damage is being done."

Kakashi was relaxing, finally, his exposed eye half lidded and sleepy looking. His chakra and heart rate had steadied out, and the tension was leaving his body.

"Alright, move up toward the wrist," Tsunade said quietly, sliding her hands along Kakashi's skin in the long lines she'd been teaching Sakura all afternoon. Sakura suspected that at least 50% of the beneficial side effects from massage were just from touch. Ninja didn't usually allow anyone so close.

Sakura ran her thumbs up along the inside of his arm, skimming her chakra over Kakashi's skin in a quick check for injuries. She frowned and glanced up at Tsunade, wondering if she should ask about—

"I use that arm for Raikiri and Chidori," Kakashi said quietly, without looking at her.

Sakura blinked, and glanced down at her hands, wondering how he'd—

"You hesitated. And I can feel your chakra, you know," Kakashi pointed out with lazy amusement.

Tsunade laughed. "Brat," she said, rearranging his hand so it rested against her upper arm, and her hand was cradling his elbow. Kakashi's little finger rubbed against the side of Tsunade's breast.

"Do you mind if I try healing some of the damage?" Sakura asked, perfectly aware that Kakashi was distracted and that Tsunade had probably done it for exactly that reason.

"Mmm, sure," Kakashi said, gazing through half-lidded eyes at Tsunade's boobs.

Sakura rolled her eyes and considered yet again increasing the size of her chest the same way Tsunade had.

"You'll regret it, Sakura," Tsunade said absently, gliding her free thumb up and down Kakashi's forearm.

Sakura wondered how the hell her teachers always managed to read her mind, and started loosening up and dissolving some of the scar tissue in Kakashi's arm. It felt like Chidori and Raikiri were giving Kakashi microscopic burns every time he used them and the burns had reduced blood flow, flexibility, and feeling in his arm and hand.

Kakashi hissed unhappily and glared at her out of the corner of his eye. Sakura stuck her tongue out and healed another section of muscle. It wasn't her fault he'd gone and damaged himself, now was it?

"It hurts," Kakashi grumbled, trying to tug his hand free, wiggling away from Sakura.

Tsunade's hands glowed for a second and Kakashi stopped fighting and let out a happy hum.

Sakura tried not to giggle. She hadn't thought Kakashi would be so vocal. "How much should I heal?" she asked Tsunade, dissolving another patch of scar tissue inside his wrist. Sakura noted the location carefully, as she was almost certain that it corresponded to a tenketsu.

"As much as we can get him to sit still for," Tsunade said dryly, holding Kakashi's arm as he started to squirm again.

"Aren't you done yet?" Kakashi asked, shifting toward Tsunade again. His eye narrowed and he tried to pull free again, yanking hard enough that Sakura had to enhance her grip with chakra. Tsunade's hands glowed, but he barely noticed, too busy trying to make Sakura let go.

"Best stop," Tsunade said regretfully.

Sakura pulled her chakra out from under Kakashi's skin. "If you're up to it later, Kakashi, I'd really like to finish at least part of that. I think your joints are beginning to stiffen up from the damage," she noted.

"Damn it, really?" Kakashi muttered in disgruntled disgust.

Tsunade took Kakashi's right arm from Sakura. Her hands lit up with chakra and Kakashi yelped, jerking hard enough that he set the table rocking. "Sakura is right. You'll need to get this looked at soon," Tsunade said. "Sakura is one of the best at making the process less painful, so you may want to go to her for it."

"That was _less _painful?" Kakashi complained, pulling his hand free and holding it against his chest. He gave the door a longing glance.

Tsunade put her hand on his shoulder in warning and leaned over in a subtle bribe. "Yes, actually," she said.

"Actually, I wasn't trying to make it less painful," Sakura spoke up, a bit sheepishly. Now that she thought about it, that would have been a good idea. She could see the faint outline of a pout under the dark fabric of Kakashi's mask, and rushed to explain, "I usually don't. Mostly we make stuff like that hurt so that we don't spend all day healing civilians and idiots who are worried about their looks."

Kakashi's eye widened in surprise, and Sakura winced as she realized what she'd just said.

Tsunade smacked the back of Sakura's head in rebuke. "Excellent work giving away trade secrets."

"If you can make it so I don't feel pain while you do it, I'll let you heal as much as you want," Kakashi offered, "...does the rest of the healing have to hurt too? Or are you just screwing with us?" he asked after a second.

"It takes a lot more time and chakra, which is the real reason most medics don't try to lessen the pain. On the battlefield it's just impractical," Tsunade explained, glaring at Sakura. "But in the hospital, yes, a few medics can make healing painless. If you spread that knowledge around, I'll ensure that you never, ever get healed without agonizing pain."

Kakashi nodded carefully, giving Tsunade a wary look. "...I thought that Rin was an exception," he admitted after a second.

Sakura tilted her head in confusion, wondering who the hell Rin was.

"She wasted time lessening pain?" Tsunade asked in disgust. "Silly girl."

Kakashi's jaw twitched and his voice was clipped and cold, "She was a good teammate."

"One who could have killed you with her procrastinating," Tsunade retorted.

"But obviously didn't," Sakura interjected. "Can we continue with the lesson? There's only an hour left before you have to be in the council meeting," Sakura reminded Tsunade. The time she had with Tsunade was in preciously short supply. She wasn't going to let it be wasted with arguing.

"Fine," Tsunade said. She lifted Kakashi's arm off the table, ignoring the faint resistance he offered. "Move up from the elbow toward his shoulder. This area is one of the best to use chakra healing massage on, especially in cases of dislocated shoulders and muscle strain. You can hide the healing in the massage, so that the patient doesn't notice the lack of pain, but walks away with the damage repaired."

Sakura nodded uneasily. Tsunade obviously wasn't over her letting Kakashi in on one of the Secrets.

"The trapezius and deltoid muscles are an excellent place to release some..." Tsunade paused as Kakashi stiffened and grabbed her wrist, "...tension. Or not, as the case may be."

Sakura rolled her eyes, because even she knew what the problem was. "Too close to the mask," she said. Kakashi freaked if you got too close to his mask. "Or maybe his neck. We never figured out which."

Kakashi snickered, "_That's _what you brats were trying to find out?"

"It was Sasuke's idea," Sakura said, pretending that her stomach hadn't twisted inside out just from saying his name. "Naruto and I went along with it because we wanted to see under your mask."

The humour fled from Kakashi's face, and Sakura regretted...everything. She regretted everything. "It's both," he said seriously. "I hate people touching my mask and I hate having hands near my throat."

Tsunade was looking at Sakura with something like approval. "Anywhere else you know you don't like people touching?" she asked, pulling her hands away from Kakashi's shoulder.

Kakashi shrugged. "Nowhere else as strongly," he said after a second. "But I don't like being touched in the first place."

Sakura was distinctly unsurprised. "You_ are_ okay with this, right?" she asked.

Kakashi winked at her—or maybe he blinked. "I'm suffering through," he said.

"Excellent," Tsunade said. "So can we pull the towel off yet, or do we need to soften you up some more?"

Kakashi pinned the towel over his chest and shook his head emphatically. "I like my towel."

Tsunade sighed and moved down to Kakashi's feet again. "Alright Sakura, you've got his right side this time. I noticed an old injury to his ankle earlier that didn't heal perfectly. I want you to use chakra healing to fix it while pretending that you're just using massage."

"Painless, right?" Kakashi asked, gazing down the length of his body with a worried look.

Tsunade gave him a short nod, then returned her focus to Sakura. "Go."

Sakura grabbed the bottle of oil and added more to her hands, considering a plan of attack. She needed to distract him enough that he didn't notice her examining his ankle. The pressure points on his foot practically leapt out at her, screaming 'pick me, pick me!' Sakura smirked. It _would_ be the most expedient route and if she did it right, he wouldn't even know—

"I think that's probably an excellent plan," Kakashi said encouragingly as Tsunade cackled.

—except for the whole psychic thing. Sakura grabbed his foot, overlaying her hands with a layer of invisible chakra. She sent the faintest threads of chakra into both of the pressure points Tsunade had shown her and used a bit of careful massaging to divert his attention.

"I'd probably fall for that if I didn't know better," Kakashi said encouragingly.

Sakura ran a quick scan up through his ankle, trying to find the injury Tsunade had spoken of. It was easy to spot. "Freaking _ow_," Sakura said, once she figured out how he must have gotten it.

"Huh?" Kakashi replied. His psychic powers must deteriorate when he's distracted.

"Someone stabbed you through the ankle?" she asked incredulously.

Kakashi shifted, spreading his legs further apart. "It was...a really long time ago," he said unfocusedly.

Sakura checked the influx of chakra into the pressure points. "Kakashi? How noticeable is what I'm doing?"

"I think you're giving me a foot fetish," Kakashi replied absently, rising up to his elbows to watch her. The towel slipped down enough that Sakura could see one set of completely normal looking nipples and a very nice chest.

"Damn it," Sakura said, reducing the input. She started a much slower breakdown of scar tissue than she'd used earlier, reforming it into normal muscles and tendons.

"I wasn't complaining, you know," Kakashi told her. "I think I could deal with having a foot fetish."

"Does it count if it's your own feet?" Tsunade asked.

"I have no idea," Kakashi replied. "—And I felt that," he added, looking back at Sakura.

Sakura grinned up at him. "Felt what?" she asked, holding his ankle still and gently rolling his foot around in a circle. "Your 100% fixed and better than ever ankle?"

"You're done?" he asked in surprise. His foot flexed up, and then down, tapping against Sakura's palm. "Huh. No stiffness."

Tsunade put her hand on top of his ankle and scanned it. "Good," she said. "The rest of chakra healing massage is similar—pretending that you aren't healing when you actually are so that no one questions the lack of pain. Usually you'd draw it out over a couple of sessions, make it seem like it was a cumulative thing. Given that you have a test dummy in the know, so to speak, I'd like you to practice later."

Sakura glanced at Kakashi and he didn't seem totally opposed, so she nodded her agreement.

"Then let's get to work on those pressure points," Tsunade said.

Sakura ignored Kakashi's subtle fist pump of joy. "Great! Where do we start?" she asked.

"Most of the best ones are hidden by his towels," Tsunade said pointedly, "But we'll start on the one on the front of his foot."

"Some are better than others?" Sakura asked.

Tsunade smiled. "Very much so. There are three located on the pelvis that can knock the subject out if you use them wrong."

Sakura licked her lips. "What if you use them right?"

"Thirty minute orgasms," Tsunade said.

"I'm suddenly feeling less attached to the towel," Kakashi mused.

"I'm thinking those would make a good grand finale. You aren't going to be much good after that," Tsunade told him, patting his foot affectionately.

Sakura clasped her hands together and gave Tsunade her best 'ready-to-learn' expression.

"Gah, stop looking like that," Tsunade said, "It makes you look fifteen."

"I _am_ fifteen," Sakura reminded her, mostly for the pleasure of seeing Tsunade wince.

"You know, I'd almost managed to forget that," Kakashi said. "Thank you, Sakura, for further destroying my faith in my own morality."

"You backing out?" Sakura asked sweetly, knowing that he wasn't.

"Nah, I've almost gotten used to the sensation. It tickles. A little like fish nibbling at my toes, or soul as the case may be."

"Ew," Sakura grimaced, remembering the mission that he was referring to. "I hated you so much after that."

"Trust me, I know," Kakashi replied, before changing the subject, "So are we going to get started on torturing me with unrelenting pleasure? Or am I going to have to go home to my porn?"

"Just waiting for you two to finish," Tsunade said. She set a finger over the middle of his ankle, on the skin between his foot and leg. "Find the deep peroneal nerve."

Sakura slipped a thread of chakra into Kakashi's tenketsu. It was like a funnel that channelled her chakra straight into him and added surface stimulation to his nerves.

Kakashi sighed and let his elbows slide out from underneath him. "It gets more intense as the tenketsu get closer to the torso, doesn't?" he asked.

"Your groin, actually," Tsunade corrected him. "There're an additional five pressure point located on your genitals, but as I have been reminded that Sakura is fifteen, we'll be skipping those."

"I'll suffer through," Kakashi muttered, flushing a delicate pink. Sakura committed the color to memory, wondering if Kakashi wore the mask because he blushed so damn much. It was ridiculously cute.

Tsunade placed her hand on the side of Kakashi's calf. "This pressure point is located on peroneal nerve again. It isn't easily marked by any anatomical features, so just try to mimic the location of my hand."

Sakura judged the distance, then sent down an tentative chakra spike. Kakashi's leg flexed restlessly, and she grinned. Best lesson _ever_.

Tsunade pulled the towel covering Kakashi's knees off and threw it in the corner. "Right. Heading on up to the femoral nerve. There are three tenketsu on this nerve, and you can hit them all with a single hand. If you position yourself correctly, you can get both of his legs at the same time, too."

Sakura studied the placement of Tsunade's hand, then placed her own. "Can I—?"

Tsunade removed her hand from Kakashi's other leg and Sakura placed her fingers in the right spots. It was awkward, and if Kakashi thrashed at all, she was going to lose her position. It was probably that thought that make Sakura add twice as much chakra to each pressure point as she had been using.

Kakashi moaned, his legs sliding apart and his feet falling off the sides of the table. Sweat gleamed on his skin.

Sakura managed to keep her hands in position, and maintained a constant flow of chakra out of curiosity.

Kakashi's hands grasped at the towels, and his hips bucked up, thrusting against the air. "Sakura?" he gasped, one of his hands reaching toward her, fingers grasping at the air.

Sakura broke the connection, stepping away. Her heart beat too fast from the strain of too much chakra use. She ran her wrist across her forehead, wiping away the sweat that was beading there.

"You're enjoying this far too much," Tsunade whispered in her ear, quiet enough that Kakashi could not hear.

There was no condemnation in her voice, so Sakura said, "Yeah."

She watched.

The towel across his hips was wet. Kakashi was still shaking, smiling under his mask. "Next?" he asked, gazing at her through his eyelashes, his skin light pink from embarrassment or orgasm, Sakura couldn't tell which.

Nice.

Someone knocked on the door, hard enough to rattle it on its hinges. "Tsunade?" they called through the door.

Kakashi went very still and looked at the table holding his clothes. Sakura shook her head and held her finger over her lips, telling him to stay quiet. "Tsunade isn't here," she said, sounding faintly irritated.

Tsunade leaned against the back wall, glaring at the door like it had stolen her alcohol.

"...are you sure?" the messenger eventually asked. The boy sounded confused, but Sakura didn't let that stop her.

"Oh wait, my mistake, she was hiding in the fucking cupboard," Sakura snarled. "Of course I'm _sure_."

"S-sorry," he said nervously. "If you see her, could you tell her that the council is looking for her?"

Sakura gave a very put-upon sigh. "Fuck off, you twit," she said. "You're disturbing my patient."

Kakashi chuckled and flared his chakra.

Sakura could tell the instant that the messenger recognized Kakashi. His sandals squeaked against the linoleum floor as he ran off.

Tsunade snickered. "You're getting better at that," she said.

"Do you think he knew you were in here?" Sakura asked her.

"He's a chakra sensor, and Tsunade wasn't suppressing hers," Kakashi said lazily. "He knew."

Sakura grinned. "Awesome." She sighed after a second. "Think they're trying to start the meeting early?"

"Power plays." Tsunade shrugged. "They happen."

"Try disappearing into the shopping district," Kakashi advised her."Get some tea, use a henge, and no one will find you for hours."

"I'll keep that in mind," Tsunade said, "but let's finish this off first. Ready to lose the towel?"

Kakashi closed his eye and nodded. "Just don't expect me to do it myself," he said. Sakura could see the muscle in his jaw jumping, even through the concealing fabric of his mask. She wanted to...

Tsunade was gentler than usual when she peeled the towel over his chest off.

Sakura was immediately distracted.

_One, two, three, four, five, six_. Sakura counted them gleefully, then tilted her head, taking in the full picture.

Kakashi was smoking hot. Narrow lean waist, long, slender limbs, every single muscle outlined like he was a freaking anatomical chart...and six pert little pink nipples. They were arranged in pairs on his chest, at the bottom of his ribs, and a final adorable pair nestled between his hips on either side of a dark grey line of hair. Sakura fell a tiny bit in love with that shade of pink.

Sure he was a bit beaten up—scarred and well used, but Sakura knew of ways to fix that, to make all that skin lovely and whole and healthy.

"Stop before you start drooling," Tsunade whispered, nudging Sakura in the ribs hard enough to knock the air out of her.

Sakura wheezed, suitably distracted from staring at Kakashi. "Okay, um, great, we should get started," she babbled, not caring if she sounded overly eager.

Tsunade raised a sceptical eyebrow, and grabbed Sakura's hand. "The placement on this set is tricky," she said, carefully arranging Sakura's finger along the jutting edge of Kakashi's hip. "_Don't _move your fingers from there."

Sakura blushed, because that was more a warning against groping that a warning against screwing up. "Okay," she replied sheepishly.

"Start out very slow, with very little chakra. I wasn't joking about knocking him unconscious if you over do it," Tsunade warned her.

Sakura bit her lip, determined. She slid the tiniest amount of chakra though her fingers and into the warm skin underneath.

Kakashi shivered, goosebumps rising along his arms, but didn't otherwise react.

Sakura added a bit more.

His nipples tightened, rising into tight little nubs.

Sakura stared at the one only inches from her fingers and desperately wanted to touch it. She couldn't, not with Tsunade standing there, so she increased the flow of chakra into his tenketsu instead.

Kakashi rolled under her hand, shifting restlessly. His skin was getting warmer. He murmured something inaudible, and lifted his feet back onto the table.

Sakura added more.

He groaned, lifting his hands, then setting them down, tilting his head back like he was having problems getting enough air.

She wondered if she could get him to call her name again. Sakura licked her dry lips. Added more.

Kakashi opened his eye, and made a faintly desperate noise, his hands clawing at nothing until Tsunade caught them in her hand and pinned them above his head. He twisted and pulled, testing her strength. His breath hissed from between his lips, and it sounded a little like _please._

More.

He sobbed, drawing his knees up and spreading his legs, his long, sharply defined muscles shaking and shivering. Sakura grabbed the table with her free hand to keep it off of his skin, away from his body.

Kakashi lifted his head and dropped it against the padded table, and Sakura moved before she could stop herself, holding him down by pulling his hair, burying her fingers in it and keeping him still.

She added more chakra, blinking rapidly because her eyes were dry and Kakashi was beautiful.

"_Please please please,_" he begged, his hips rolling in tiny, jerking thrusts that were slowly dislodging the last towel, and making her fingers slip over slick skin.

Sakura tightened her grip on his hair and Kakashi sighed, so soft and quiet that she nearly thought she'd imagined it. It was a very nice sound, so Sakura give him a bit more power, a tiny bit more juice.

"_Sakura_," he said, staring blindly at her, his mask riding up his neck and showing thick white banded scars across his throat. "More, please, I want more."

She felt an instant of pique, irritation that he was so coherent. Her fingers slipped and she was pushing too hard. He would have bruises from Sakura holding him down.

This time, Sakura doubled it.

He cried out, trying to fight against her, to pull his head free. Kakashi writhed and the towel finally slid off, leaving him utterly exposed, wet and dripping and twitching in front of her.

Sakura unconsciously pushed more chakra into his tenketsu until it felt like a second heart, throbbing in quick hard pulses that tore ragged cries from Kakashi.

He shook, trembling under Sakura's hands, and slowly, carefully, she pulled back, dragging her chakra from his coils and back into her own, brushing off the clingy bits of his that tried to follow.

Kakashi whined softly, his eye clenched shut, lashes wet and stuck together.

Sakura's hand tightened in Kakashi's hair, then let go. She pet him gently, feeling impossibly light inside, impossibly good.

"...my favourite student," he murmured happily, opening his red rimmed eye and looking at her. A fond smile tugged at her lips, and she dried the wet line that trailed from the corner of his eye to his ear.

Tsunade hummed, and if Sakura hadn't been feeling so damn good she would have jumped. She'd forgotten about her presence. "You created some kind of feedback loop," Tsunade observed. She sounded fascinated, like she wanted to start it all over again so she could take notes.

Sakura frowned, troubled. If Tsunade wanted to do it again she was going to have to wait. Kakashi needed a nap first.

Tsunade laughed and patted Sakura's shoulder. "It's fine, I'll get my observations some other day. I'm just going to clean Kakashi up a bit, then go to my meeting, okay?"

"...like pink. Pretty like a pretty thing," Kakashi said indistinctly, then shivered. "...marry me?" he said quietly, his eye not focusing well, but pointed in the general direction of Tsunade's chest.

Sakura shrugged absently, feeling way too good to argue and kind of liking the idea. "Okay."

Tsunade's sharp burst of startled laughter nearly knocked her off her feet.


	5. Under the Sun

The blood on her lab coat was still wet when the nurse told her that Tsunade wanted to see her. Sakura nodded and advised the shell-shocked genin to look into puppetry. His hand went into a biohazard bag and Sakura left. She hated working in the hospital.

The genin's teammates' faces were wet, eyes rimmed with red. Sakura didn't bother trying to comfort them. It was their own damn fault. He hadn't even needed a fucking tourniquet. She paused and looked at them. "His hand had to be amputated."

Their jounin teacher's jaw twitched, and he laid his hands on the shoulders. It wasn't a gesture of support.

* * *

"You wanted to see me?" She leaned against the wall by the thick oak doors, tugging her shirt so it lay flat. Sakura had forgotten to take off her lab coat. It smelled like blood.

Tsunade looked up from her paperwork. She glanced at the stains on Sakura's arms, but didn't comment. "We didn't cover all of the pressure points yesterday," she said, holding out a scroll marked with her insignia. "This has the rest of them marked on it."

Sakura pushed away from the wall and came forward to take the scroll. Her smile felt dry and thin, but her gratitude sounded honest. "Thank you."

"Kakashi's degree of responsiveness is unusual," Tsunade said, the corner of her mouth quirking up. "As was his willingness to be a test subject for multiple tests. Most people find it progressively more uncomfortable."

Sakura unrolled the scroll, checking to ensure that it was the one Tsunade had intended to give to her. Last autumn, she'd been given a summary of something very important. The subsequent interrogation and memory blurring had been remarkably unpleasant. "Because of his chronic chakra exhaustion?" she guessed.

"Most likely," Tsunade confirmed. "I'd like you to check on him today and see if there were any side effects, and to what degree it enhanced his chakra production. The technique is new; I only developed it last year. I'm still testing it."

Sakura nodded absently, imagining the dull black and white drawing super-imposed over Kakashi's body. She tilted her head, a faint smile curving her lips. "Testing on Kakashi?"

Tsunada chuckled. "He was late to his last four mission briefings," she said. "A bit of discomfort would have done him good."

"If it's any consolation, I think he was deeply uncomfortable at a few points," Sakura replied, rolling the scroll closed and tucking it away.

"True." Tsunade returned to her paperwork.

Sakura took that as her dismissal. She grabbed the heavy brass handle of the door.

"...And Sakura?" Tsunade said, an odd note entering her voice.

"Yes?"

"How long ago did he try to kill himself?" she asked. There was a faint rustle-the sound of Tsunade putting her pen down.

Sakura released the door handle. She was proud of herself for showing no other reaction. A second later, she was irritated. She would have reacted if she hadn't known.

"Ah," Tsunade said, satisfied. "I thought I recognized your work."

Sakura turned to face Tsunade, her back against the doors, her face as blank as she could make it.

"Answer the question, Sakura. When did my best shinobi decide to kill himself?" Tsunade asked softly, her eyes utterly implacable.

Sakura glanced nervously at the window.

"Sakura!" Tsunade snapped. "I checked his records. You made no note of his attempt at self harm, even though you are _obligated _to do so."

Sakura wondered, slightly desperately, if she could lie her way out of this. She swallowed, her mouth dry. "I..."

"Do you have an explanation?" Tsunade demanded. The desk creaked under her hands, the wood protesting her grip on it.

"I took notes," Sakura protested. She had, they're in her apartment. "But he wouldn't let me treat him unless I promised not to add it to his file."

Tsunade's voice turned gentle, "And how long ago did it happen?"

Sakura knew that the offered kindness was a lie. It was still damn hard not to trust it. "Two weeks ago," she admitted, staring at the stained and chipped floor. Tsunade liked to throw things when she got mad.

"And after you healed him, what did you do?" Tsunade asked quietly.

"I told him it was my birthday in a week and that he still had to be alive then, otherwise I'd be really mad," Sakura said. Her throat was tight and her eyes were stinging, and she didn't know if it was because she was sad, or afraid, or what. She dared to look up, staring at Tsunade across the length of the office. "Then I made up a birthday party, and invited him to it."

Tsunade laughed. She was taking notes. "And did you see him before then?"

"He was on a mission."

"Was he healed enough to be on that mission?" Tsunade asked. It was an important question. If he hadn't been, and Sakura had let him go anyway, things would be a hell of a lot worse for her.

"He was fine," Sakura said. She refused to look away. Tsunade was leaking _intent_...not killer, but still deeply intimidating. Sakura had been around her long enough to know that she couldn't show weakness now. Any sign of doubt in her own decisions and Sakura would be in far more trouble. "I healed everything before I let him go."

Tsunade narrowed her eyes. "And after he returned...?"

"I took my birthday off, and I met him outside his apartment. We went to Team Seven's old training grounds and ate eggplant. He gave me a cupcake," Sakura said.

Tsunade actually looked surprised for a second. "A cupcake?"

Sakura nodded firmly. "It was vanilla."

"Well I suppose that makes everything better," Tsunade muttered. The hovering sense of doom abated and Sakura had to lock her knees to keep from collapsing. "I want the notes you took," she ordered Sakura.

Sakura nodded and licked her lips, trying hard not to pant out of relief. Tsunade was, bar none, the most intimidating person Sakura had ever met. Kakashi was just going to have to understand.

"And, since you seem to have kept him from killing himself, I'm putting you in charge of his health. You'll be his primary physician, under my supervision. If he dies, I'll withdraw my nomination of your name for the next med-nin exams," Tsunade concluded.

Sakura cursed, low and bitter. Yet more hoops to get out of the fucking hospital. "Fine," she said, ungraciously, ill-temperedly, and with a distinct edge of sullen. "Are you going to tell him or am I?"

Tsunade smiled cheerfully, looking nothing at all like herself. "You are. I'm busy."

"Great. So I've got to check on his chakra levels, tell him that you know he tried to kill himself, and tell him that I'm his primary physician," Sakura said, counting the points off on her fingers to make sure she didn't forget any.

"One last thing," Tsunade said, steepling her fingers. "He seems to trust you-"

Sakura snorted. Kakashi didn't trust her.

"-unlike any other medics currently on duty, so I want you to heal him."

"Like, of what?" Sakura asked warily. He wasn't hurt, so far as she knew.

"Is Kakashi in the best possible condition he could be in?" Tsunade asked, her tone turned lecturing.

Sakura's stomach sank. "No." _Shit._

"I want him to be." She raised one delicate eyebrow, amused. "And if it isn't done in three months..."

The sound of fabric ripping alerted Sakura to the damage she had just done to her coat. "...you'll withdraw my name," she said dully. This fucking promotion was almost more trouble than it was worth. "Will the work count toward my practicum?"

"How much time do you still owe?" Tsunade asked.

"Eight hundred and ninety-eight hours," Sakura recited from memory, hating the number with every fibre of her being. She loathed working at the hospital.

Tsunade hummed. "Tell you what, so long as I see real, appreciable results, you can claim up to three hundred of those for use in healing Kakashi."

Sakura _mangled_ her lab coat. "What?" She covered as quickly as she could, "I mean, thank you." She gave a very clumsy bow, almost shaking from excitement. A third of her hours, _gone_.

"Oh trust me, you'll need all of that time and more," Tsunade told her. She grabbed a stack of papers from beside her, at least five inches thick. "This is his full file. Have fun!"

Sakura felt an instant of trepidation, but pushed it to the side. It wouldn't be in the fucking hospital. She could handle it. A thought gave her pause. "Wait," she said. "What about his missions?"

Tsunade smiled. "I think Kakashi deserves a good three months of medical leave, don't you?"

She whistled softly, imagining Kakashi's reaction to that. "You're punishing him?"

"Our policy is to _not _punish suicide attempts," Tsunade replied, "but fuck policy, I'm damn pissed at him, and I don't trust him to not try suicide by mission."

"I think he's mostly stable," Sakura offered, trying to lessen Tsunade's wrath a bit.

"So did I." Tsunade stood up suddenly, still holding Kakashi's medical file. "I want him healthy, with improved chakra levels, and I want him mentally stable. I'll be throwing him into a psych evaluation at the end of his medical leave." She shoved the file into Sakura's arms.

Sakura stumbled back a bit-it was hard not to when Tsunade was pushing-and clutched the file to her chest. It smelled like sweet, sweet forty hour work weeks. It was probably a punishment, but Sakura clung to the wonderful sense of hope.

"Now get out."

Sakura opened the door, still slightly dazed. "Thanks," she muttered again.

"You're welcome." The creak of the heavy wooden doors almost drowned Tsunade's last words, but they sounded like, "...And congratulations on your enragement."

Sakura stared at her blankly. That had made absolutely no sense. She wasn't even angry.

She shrugged and left. A lot of things Tsunade said didn't make sense.

* * *

An hour and a half later, Sakura was damn near giving in and just going to work in the hospital. She couldn't find Kakashi. He wasn't at his apartment and...well, she'd drawn a blank after that, but he wasn't walking down any of Konoha's main streets. Sakura had checked. No one had seen him recently, either.

She'd gone to the training grounds, deciding to take the time to review his file there, even if she couldn't actually find him. The grass was green and a trifle scorched from mis-fired jutsu, the birds were singing merrily, and she could hear the soothing sound of genin screaming in the distance. Sakura sighed happily and pulled Kakashi's file out, casting a minor genjutsu over it so no one other than her would be able to remember what it was. It was the first time she'd been outside in _days_.

Sakura stared at the first page in confusion. The date was...a very long time ago. Sakura did a quick calculation and realized that she had twenty-two years of injuries taken during active service to go through. Damn, Kakashi had started young.

The first incident report was for an ear infection caused by slime. Sakura skipped down to the section that detailed the mission where the injury had occurred, and giggled out loud. Apparently D ranks had sucked when Kakashi was a kid, too.

The next page had a picture stapled to it and Sakura grinned. Kakashi had been an adorable kid, even if the picture had been taken to record the extent of a really bad poison ivy rash. He was glaring at the camera with both eyes, holding his mask to his face like someone was trying to take it.

There was a flicker of familiar chakra in the tree above.

Sakura rolled over and waved. Typical. She stopped looking and he appeared. "Hey. I need to talk to you," she said, closing his medical file and putting it back in her bag.

"Tsunade said you're the reason that I'm on three months of medical leave?" Kakashi sounded appalled at the very idea. "_Three months!"_ he repeated, like the number was going to change or something if he said it enough.

Sakura kicked his tree hard enough to send it rocking. "It's her fault, not mine," she protested when he jumped down beside her. She offered him a warm juice box from her bag and patted the ground beside her. "Sit down and I'll explain."

Kakashi gave her a suspicious look, but took the juice box like the peace offering it was. He shoved the straw through the little foil circle, then stuck the whole thing under his mask.

Sakura stared, then snickered. She could see the outlines of his hand and the juice box under the dark navy fabric. It looked ridiculous.

"I'm thirsty," Kakashi said defensively, the straw wiggling between his lips. He slurped up the last of the liquid and handed the empty box back to her. "So explain why I'm not allowed to take any missions for three months."

Sakura bit her lip thoughtfully, wondering if there was a diplomatic way to say this. "Tsunade figured out that you tried to kill yourself and that I healed you, when she saw you yesterday. She was pissed, so she put you on medical leave and made me your watchdog. If you die, I don't get to take the medic-nin exams this year." If there was a diplomatic way, it probably wasn't that. She should have emphasized the 'him not dying' more than the 'her not taking the medic-nin exams.'

"Well shit," Kakashi said. He finally sat down, sinking into the tall grass more gracefully than Sakura had ever managed. Stupid jounin. "What am I supposed to do with three months of free time?" he asked her, sounding bemused by the very implication of a vacation.

"Well, that's the good news," Sakura said, trying to put a positive spin on things. "You get to continue to be my training dummy!"

"Really?" he asked, sounding intrigued.

Sakura suddenly remembered what she'd been testing on him yesterday in vivid detail. "But not like that," she said sheepishly. Unless it turned out that it had helped, in which case, it was a completely valid form of therapy, right?

"Oh," Kakashi said sadly, pulling Icha Icha Paradise from his back pocket.

"Well, maybe. It depends on how effective it was," Sakura amended, thinking of the scroll Tsunade had given her. Practice made perfect, and Sakura did love being perfect. "I have to 'significantly improve' your health over the next three months, or I don't get to take the exams."

Kakashi lowered his book and eyed Sakura over the edge. "Which means...?"

"I'm gonna fix you up real nice," Sakura said cheerfully, mashing her hands together to show him what she meant. "And then I'm gonna show you to Tsunade and get my fucking promotion."

He leaned back. "Do I get any choice in the matter?"

Sakura frowned, seeing her promotion trying to escape. "No. You don't," she told him, folding her arms across her chest defiantly. "I'm going to fix you, and that's final."

"But I'm not broken," Kakashi protested, setting his book down on his thigh. "I'm okay, really."

Sakura tilted her head. "No you aren't," she said.

"Yes I am."

"You tried to kill yourself," Sakura pointed out.

"I changed my mind."

"What if you try again?"

"It had nothing to do with my physical health, so 'fixing' me won't help," Kakashi said in exasperation.

"I'm supposed to fix that, too. You're getting a psych evaluation in three months," Sakura said.

"Fuck." Kakashi didn't say anything else for a few minutes. "How do you intend to fix my mental health?" he eventually asked, drawing his legs up to his chest and resting his chin on his knees.

It felt important, so Sakura held back the sarcastic answer that sprang to mind and actually thought about it. "I've got no idea," she admitted. "I figured that I'd try being your friend. Because, we're, like, friends," Sakura concluded, feeling ten kinds of lame.

"Yeah?" Kakashi said, tilting his head. His mask moved and she thought he might be smiling. His eye looked happy.

Sakura nodded hesitantly. "We could do...friend things." She flailed blindly in unfamiliar territory, then pulled on memories from her last friendship. "Like...each other's hair. And movies. And, like, sleepovers."

Kakashi looked confused. "I thought friends played games together," he said, casting a look at Icha Icha Paradise, abandoned on the grass beside him. "And went drinking," he added after a second.

"We could do that too," Sakura said. She was almost certain that most friendships involved stuff like that more often than doing each other's hair. It was something of a pity. Sakura missed playing with someone else's hair.

Kakashi nodded. "I can deal with that, so long as you promise not to use mind altering jutsu on me."

"Those exist?" Sakura asked eagerly. That sounded _so _much easier.

"No," he denied, snapping his book up to cover his face.

Right. "Okay," Sakura said. She could research it later. "How about this: I'll do my best to make you happy, if you do your best to be happy."

Kakashi peeked over the edge of Icha Icha Paradise. "Deal."

"So is there anything physical I can fix right now?" Sakura asked, trying not to sound too enthusiastic. She wanted to make something better today. "I could finish fixing your arm," Sakura offered. "I only got partially through yesterday."

Kakashi extended his arm. "You'll make the healing not hurt?" he asked, keeping just out of her reach.

"Yeah," she agreed, leaning forward and grabbing his wrist. Since she was done at the hospital today there was no real reason to conserve her chakra.

Sakura tested his chakra, prodding it a bit to see how active it was. It was still thicker and denser than most people's, as much as intangible energy could be said to have physical properties, but it was also... "Hey, how are you feeling today? Like, compared to yesterday?"

"At what point yesterday?" he questioned, a hint of smugness in his voice.

"Before I commandeered you as my training dummy," Sakura clarified, smirking a bit. Truth be told, remembering yesterday made her feel pretty smug, too.

"Good? Better than usual, anyway," Kakashi said vaguely. "I don't know, can you be more specific?"

"Check your chakra levels and tell me if they're higher than usual," Sakura asked, petting his chakra with strands of her own. It tumbled through his chakra coils, rolling and spinning with rapid, enthusiastic turbulence. If chakra could be ascribed an emotion, she'd call it giddy.

His chakra practically licked her fingers, then quelled for a second, tamed. "Well, that's different," Kakashi said, tapping his book against his chin thoughtfully. He shook his hand free from hers and sent a wave of chakra crackling over his palm. "I haven't had this much chakra in ages," he said, letting the lightning settle back under his skin.

Sakura smiled. "Those pressure points do encourage chakra production, which is great, because I'm supposed to fix your whole chronic chakra fatigue thing, too."

"You don't say," he said, looking at her hopefully.

"I think I just found the first part of your therapy," Sakura said cheerfully. "We'll see how long it takes before your eye sucks it all up again."

Kakashi's eye curved in a happy smile. "I think I'll take advantage of all this time and energy by doing some extra training," he said, "possibly even lots of extra training."

Sakura laughed. "Let me heal the scars in your arm and I'll let you go train to exhaustion." She picked up his hand, ignoring the prickling shocks of left over static charge.

* * *

A drop of sweat slipped off her nose, landing on the fabric of Kakashi's glove. Sakura sighed and let go of his hand. "Okay, that should do it." His arm was free of the tiny scars from channelling too much chakra.

Kakashi shook his hand, then stretched out his arm. "I don't really feel any difference," he said.

"You probably won't." Sakura sprawled back into the sweet smelling grass. "But it will make it easier to use chidori, I think."

He lay down beside her, covering his eye with his newly healed arm. "Every little bit counts?"

"Something like that," Sakura replied, yawning. She'd used most of her chakra, and a pleasant lethargy filled her. The distant screams of genin had faded and all she could hear was the soft rustle of leaves and the faint chirping of birds.

The sweat on her skin cooled in the light summer breeze even as the sun warmed her down to her bones. Sakura closed her eyes, letting the rest of her senses take over.

Kakashi's chakra was a healthy, bright glow in the corner of her mind. Sakura sent a strand of chakra toward him, smiling lazily when it was wrapped in his chakra and held there. Kakashi had taught her it as an exercise in control, a long time ago when the boys had been fighting and she'd been on the sidelines.

"Is this like a sleepover?" Kakashi murmured, his knuckles brushing against Sakura's arm.

"Sort of," she said sleepily. "It's better with movies, though."

"Next time?"

Sakura nodded, shifting to a warmer patch of grass. If it happened to be closer to Kakashi, that was a coincidence and nothing more.


	6. Challenged

"—Defend her honour!" Sakura was jerked out of the sleepy daze that she'd fallen into by the strident exclamation. She sat up slowly, ignoring the rest of Lee's ranting with the ease of long experience.

"What?" she interrupted him, half her attention on making her hair lie flat.

Lee continued as if she hadn't said anything, so Sakura looked up to find that he wasn't actually talking to her. Sakura followed his red-faced glare.

"Oh, hey Kakashi," she greeted him, surprised that he was still there. "Did you do something to make Lee mad?"

Kakashi read his book ferociously, only the faintest twitch of his shoulder acknowledging her question.

"—Fragrant Blossom of Youth!" Lee concluded, thrusting a defiant fist into the air, his eyes glinting fiercely in the light of the setting sun.

Sakura yawned, faintly irritated that her nap had been interrupted. She considered asking Kakashi if he wanted to get something to eat, but realized that she couldn't afford it. Sakura shrugged and went for second best. "You headed home?" she asked, standing and brushing off the back of her dress.

Kakashi nodded, rising to his feet, his eye glued to Icha Icha Paradise.

"No!" Lee shouted. "I—I challenge you!"

Sakura sent an incredulous look to Lee.

Lee held his stance, pointing at Kakashi as a dark chill cooled the forest surrounding him and a small string orchestra reached a stirring crescendo. For being unable to do any type of external chakra manipulation, Lee did a damn fine job of casting minor area effect genjutsu.

"Seriously...?" Sakura asked, shaking her head. Lee wasn't half-bad, but Kakashi was a fucking _amazing_ninja, which was a hell of a lot better than 'not half-bad.'

"For your _Honour_," Lee yelled at her urgently. "He has Besmirched—"

Oh _Hell_no.

Her fist knocked Lee across the clearing and embedded him in a tree. "Look, _Lee_," Sakura snarled, pissed and embarrassed because Kakashi was watching and of all the people in the world— "I can defend my own damn _honour_. I am so sick of you listening to rumours and—and—Goddamn, Lee! You're the only person in Konoha who believes in rumours!"

"You don't understand," Lee jumped free of the tree, completely unaffected by her punch. Sakura hated him a tiny bit for that. When she punched someone, Sakura expected them to stay punched.

"He has—"

Suddenly Kakashi was beside her, his hand on her shoulder. It took a second before Sakura noticed that he'd stopped her in the middle of casting a truly debilitating genjutsu. "Lee?" she said, after a few calming breaths, aided by Kakashi's disappointed frown.

"Yes?" Lee paused in the midst of a weird little dance thing, dropping his attempt at a fierce look and gazing at her with such adoration that Sakura just wanted to smack him.

"If you want to commit suicide by challenging Kakashi—" Kakashi's fingers dug into her skin, just hard enough to bruise. "—not that he would kill you, but you'd still go down so hard that they'd be picking up pieces of you until New Years—" His grip relaxed, slightly. "—feel free. I hope he breaks your legs."

"Sakura..." Kakashi warned her.

"But don't you dare do it to defend my honour," Sakura finished, shifting out from under Kakashi's hand before he could break her collarbone.

Lee stared at her, his eyes brimming with tears. Sakura sincerely hoped that he wouldn't cry. She hated it when he cried. "But they're saying that you and he—"

"Lee," Kakashi interrupted, flipping his book open. Sakura caught a blurred glimpse of a complicated line drawing before he raised it above her eye level, giving her a pointed look. "Last week, I heard a rumour that you and Gai were lovers."

Sakura choked on her own spit, because, damn, that was not where she'd thought Kakashi was going with that.

"Gai would NEVER!" Lee howled, flushing a brilliant red. He lunged forward, so fast that Sakura could barely see him.

Kakashi caught both of his wrists in one hand and lifted him up, forcing Lee to dangle about a foot over the grass. "Yeah," Kakashi replied, peering at Lee over the edge of his book. "I know that. That's why I told the gossiper that he was full of shit, and reminded him that spreading rumours of that nature was a violation of Code 33-28-B." Kakashi let go of Lee's wrists.

Kakashi was her hero. Her magical, special, Anti-Lee hero. "I've told you before and I'll tell you again, I can defend myself." Sakura released a shuddering breath, and hoped that Lee would listen for once, because she was tired of hating him. Okay, more like really disliking. It sucked. "For the last time, _leave me alone_."

The tears in Lee's eyes tumbled down over his cheeks, and Sakura cursed herself for feeling guilty. Fuck Lee and his stupid green jumpsuit leotard thing.

"I—" Lee wiped his tears away, "Then I challenge you, Sakura!" he shouted, pointing at Sakura. "If I win, you must acknowledge me as a suitor!"

Sakura felt a rush of dread and glanced up at Kakashi. "Just a sec," she said, grabbing Kakashi's sleeve and dragging him toward the trees, hoping for a pretence of privacy. "Kakashi? Can he do that?"

Kakashi didn't look away from Lee, his eye narrowed and _angry_. "Maybe," he muttered.

Sakura grimaced. "Well, hell," she muttered. "What are my options? I've never been challenged before," she said, taking a second to size Lee up. Sakura had no idea if she could beat him. She hadn't seen him fight since the Chuunin Exams, three years ago.

"He shouldn't be challenging you over this. It makes him look desperate," Kakashi replied, ignoring her question.

Sakura shrugged, not willing to admit how cruel she'd been to Lee in the past. "He probably is," she muttered. "I've been doing my best to crush his hopes."

"I hope you were kinder than you were with Naruto."

Sakura hated feeling guilty. "I'm not a fucking prize," she hissed. "They can't have me just because they _want_ me. Lee doesn't know _anything_ about me, and yes I know how fucking ironic it is that I'm saying that, but damnit, I learned my lesson," Sakura whispered in a single breath. She _hated_guilt.

Kakashi ruffled her hair. "It's your life," he said, which could mean a lot of things. "Refusing to fight will damage your reputation, badly. If you accept the fight and win, you can set his forfeit. Lose, and you must accept him as a potential suitor," Kakashi said. "Which, just for the record, is an incredibly inappropriate forfeit for him to set."

She couldn't afford to let her reputation suffer, but that wasn't why Sakura wanted to accept his challenge. In a dark little corner of her heart, Sakura wanted to make him bleed. She wanted to _fight_.

She hadn't used chakra enhanced strength when she had hit Lee, earlier. He'd been relatively undamaged, but Sakura could hit a lot harder than that. She cracked her knuckles thoughtfully. "What do you think he means by suitor?"

"Ask him. It's his forfeit," Kakashi advised her.

Sakura squared her shoulders. "Hey, Lee!" Sakura raised her voice, and strode forward, closer to the other chuunin.

"Yes Sakura?" Lee reminded her of a puppy, one which had been hit a few too many times. He sounded afraid of what she might say.

Sakura hated guilt. "What precisely do you want from that forfeit?"

"Keep in mind, Lee, that if you try to have sex with Sakura based on a challenge by combat, I will hunt you down and castrate you," Kakashi promised, his voice echoing across the clearing. "Then I would probably kill you slowly, but fast is good too. It would really depend."

Sakura barely felt the wave of killer intent Kakashi directed toward Lee, passing by her like a rolling wave of heat. She did see Lee shiver and snap into a fighting stance, his eyebrows drawn together in determination.

"I would never!" Lee denied hotly. "I merely wish—"

"To force Sakura to feel something that she doesn't. I caught that," Kakashi replied. "Win or lose, this will destroy your reputation, Lee."

"I just want the same chance that you had!" Lee protested.

Sakura looked back at Kakashi and raised her eyebrows, silently asking if he knew what Lee was talking about. He shrugged, hands half-raised in the universal expression of cluelessness. "Like...to teach me when I was a genin? Because outside of time travel—"

"You know what I mean!"

"I don't," Sakura replied.

"I want you to take me seriously, Sakura! Give me a chance!" Lee pleaded, dropping to his knees. "You won't even _look _at me," he concluded, his voice quiet and almost defeated.

Sakura flushed, because she'd looked away the instant that he'd dropped to his knees. Truth was an ugly thing. "Specifics, Lee. You challenged me, what do I have to do if you win?" she demanded.

"If I win, you can't mock me. And if I ask, then you should go out on dates with me," Lee said after a long pause, where he'd obviously struggled to articulate his desires.

"For how long?" Sakura asked, trying to squash that stupid feeling of guilt.

"A year?" Lee said tentatively.

"No way. A month, tops," Sakura snapped back. Guilt isn't going to force her into going out with Lee more than she has to. She remembered the one date they went on with the horrified clarity reserved for all of the worst moments in her life, and had no desire to repeat it.

"Then six months. It isn't fair, otherwise," Lee insisted.

"One month, no more. _And_the dates all have to be chaperoned," Sakura said sharply. From the way Kakashi had reacted to Lee's forfeit, she was almost certain that she could keep it a single month. "By Kakashi," Sakura added in a sudden burst of inspiration.

"What?" Kakashi asked, his voice almost drown out by Lee's shout.

"Then you can't get married until the month is up!" Lee's face contorted into a deep scowl, a darker expression than she'd ever seen on him before.

Sakura blinked. "Um. Okay." She cast an uncertain glance at Kakashi. Seriously, was that such a worry that Lee had to specify? "Then you have to convince Kakashi to chaperone." _Boo Yeah!_Win or lose, Sakura was never, ever going on a date with Lee. Thank the gods for Kakashi.

He looked at her like Sakura had just demanded that Lee give up green, but he nodded. "Deal," Lee said, not shouting, not posing. She felt the waves of killing intent radiating off of Lee, directed toward Kakashi, and wondered what the hell the most recent rumour had _s_aid to make Lee so unfriendly.

"Now, on to what _I _win," Sakura said smoothly. She was copying Tsunade's bartering style, but she was pretty sure Lee wouldn't notice. Though, from the faint laugh behind her, Kakashi had. "I want you to leave me alone until you can answer three questions."

Lee frowned intensely. "What questions?"

"What my favourite color is, who my hero is, and what my dream is," Sakura said, certain that he could not possibly know the answers. "And every time you guess wrong, you have to leave me alone for a month before you can guess again."

"But I already know the answers," Lee said, rocking back on his heels.

"I'm pretty sure you don't," Sakura replied, because he's never bothered to ask her. No one had ever asked. "Do you agree?"

"You like red and white, Tsunade, and you want to be a medic-nin," Lee spoke with certainty, giving her a completely unnecessary thumbs up.

Sakura smiled thinly, her eyes narrowed. "You are wrong on every count. Do you agree to my terms?"

"You have to tell someone your answers, so you can't change them," Lee sounded like he thought she was lying. It pissed Sakura off. How could Lee even like her if he thought so poorly of her?

"This is literally the longest argument over challenge forfeits I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing," Kakashi said from the sidelines, the absolute boredom in his voice calming Sakura down again.

Sakura walked back into the shadows to stand beside Kakashi, tugging his sleeve until he slouched down to her level, peering at her curiously from behind his book.

Sakura leaned forward, closing the distance between them until her lips were an inch from his ear. "My favourite color is blue. My hero is—" Sakura froze, embarrassed and completely unwilling to tell him the truth. "Actually, do you have any paper? And a pencil?"

Kakashi raised his eyebrow, but fished a crumpled receipt (for porn) from his wallet, and a badly nicked pen from his kunai pouch.

"Thanks," Sakura said, backing up quickly. She found a smooth barked tree and used it to write on the sales receipt for the Icha Icha Movie Trilogy Collector's Pack (Holographic Edition).

_My favourite colour is dark blue._  
_My hero is Kakashi Hatake._  
_I want to be a combat jounin and to work with my first team again._

Sakura folded the paper up tightly and handed it to Kakashi. "You don't have to read it unless I win," Sakura muttered, blushing. She'd never told him and had never intended to.

Kakashi tucked the receipt back into his wallet without looking at it. "I think you've managed to cover every single ambiguity in excruciating detail," he said, smiling at her. "Go fight him, Sakura."

"You have my promise that the information I wrote down is completely true, Lee. Do you accept my terms?" Sakura asked.

"Yes!"

"This is..." Kakashi sighed again and shook his head. "Lee, I'm not joking. Kunoichi will spit on you in the street for this. Gai sure as hell won't approve and I'm tempted to call you out just on principle. Are you _sure _you want to go through with this?"

"Win or lose, it will be worth it," Lee answered, glaring at Kakashi. Sakura's never actually heard him sound bitter before, and it leaves an odd taste in her mouth. He looked at her and brightened so much that it hurt. "Sakura! I am honoured to fight you!"

Sakura wasn't certain that she could win. She was, however, damn sure that she wanted to hurt Lee. "Referee?" she asked Kakashi.

He shrugged half-heartedly, tilting his book to get a better look at something. "Sure. Lee, are you ready?"

"I am!" Lee's enthusiasm was infectious—it made Sakura want to hit him until he stopped sparkling so damn much. Did he use glitter toothpaste?

"Yeah," she replied, belatedly, to Kakashi's similar question to her.

"Fine. Ready, set, go," Kakashi wandered to the side of the clearing, thoroughly distracted by his book. Apparently, anyway. Sakura was fairly certain that Kakashi was watching them.

"I do not wish to hurt you, Sakura!" Lee declared, "But—"

Sakura ripped a birch tree from the ground and broke the crown off, tearing the green wood until only the jagged spear of the trunk and the massive ball of dirt at its base remained. "That's too bad, Lee. Because I kind of want to hurt you."

"Holy shit," Kakashi muttered from the sidelines and Sakura's heart fluttered, all irrational and stupid.

Lee tore his gaze from her new spear and met her eyes. "Very well." He bowed and darted right, curving around to attack her on the side with the tree.

Sakura chuckled, low and a bit too excited, and dropped her distraction, dodging out of his path. She finished the last seals for her genjutsu, and it slid over Lee, a multi-layered illusion that Sakura could feel ghost-touching her skin, and see dimly in the corners of her vision.

To use genjutsu was to live it in echoes, Kurenai had told Sakura, before smiling blandly and mentioning that she had grown to like it. Jounin were fucking terrifying, sometimes.

Sakura circled him, the tree clasped firmly in her hands. In the genjutsu, she attacked, shadows of her body pounding Lee into the ground, faint sensations of hitting and being hit fluttering across her skin.

He shouted, and fought her illusionary clones with grace that Sakura envied. Lee's form was a work of art.

The fine powder on the birch bark mixed with the sweat on her palms, forming a slick paste. She didn't have the chakra to maintain the genjutsu, and attacking Lee directly would knock him out of it.

Her wavering control made the genjutsu more real for her, less ghost than poltergeist. Sakura muffled a gasp, turning it into a harsh breath. Her skin had not broken open, shredded by the jagged tip of her tree-spear, and neither had Lee's. He darted away from her genjutsu copy, hand pressed against his uninjured side where blood would be had she actually hit him.

She didn't have enough chakra left after healing Kakashi to defeat Lee using genjutsu, and it was unlikely that she would be able to defeat Lee using taijutsu. Some part of Sakura paused contemplatively as she realized that she was probably going to lose.

Sakura grinned, and drove Lee toward her using illusions, adding a dozen cawing crows to the invisible attack. She'd trained with Tsunade for two and a half years, and she had never won a sparring match, excluding the time that Tsunade had surrendered halfway through so she could wait out her hangover in peace. Losing didn't mean much, even with that stupid forfeit.

The birds' screams heralded Lee stumbling into range, and Sakura swung the tree over her head, slamming the ball of roots and moist dirt into Lee, hard enough to break her tree and dent the ground beneath.

The frantic brush of bird wings across bare skin disappeared and Sakura was forced to dodge Lee's suddenly accurate attack, leaping into the trees and abandoning the shattered remains of her makeshift weapon.

Lee followed, sliding behind her and launching a combo that Sakura barely avoided. He was _fast_. His fist broke a sapling in half, partially ripping it free from the ground, and Sakura revised her previous thought to include the word _strong _as well.

She cast an earth jutsu, one so familiar that Sakura barely needed the signs, and slammed her fist into the ground, curving her body around Lee's punch, his hand missing so narrowly that it ripped part of her shirt.

A six foot spur of rock shot out of the ground, slamming into Lee's chest and knocking him into the air. Sakura leaped after Lee and slammed him into the rock pillar she'd created, stomping down on him with all her chakra enhanced weight.

The aftershocks from the earth jutsu vibrated in her bones as Sakura landed on the trampled grass. She rubbed a hand over her face, wiping away a thin layer of sweat, and jumped, flipping over Lee's next attack. Sakura mentally added _resilient_to the list, and wondered if it was sad that she liked Lee better when she was fighting him.

She slid away from a roundhouse kick, silently blessing the many hours Tsunade had spent drilling her on dodging (there had been rocks—big ones). Lee followed through with a wild punch that Sakura dodged out of paranoia, barely missing the second punch he'd lined up while she was distracted by the first.

It wasn't enough to avoid his hits, Sakura decided, dropping low to evade another kick. She needed to hit him back. If she could get Lee with her full strength, he might stay down. Of course, beating him with a tree had just made him dirty, so punching him might not work either.

Sakura dodged again, lips pursed in thought. Lee's descending heel almost crushed her shoulder, missing by the barest of margins.

Their fight paused for a second. Lee's stare was calculating, and Sakura wondered if he'd finally figured out that she really didn't need protecting. Maybe he'd focus his efforts on a nice civilian girl, she thought hopefully. Stranger things had happened.

Lee flickered, moving so fast that her eyes couldn't keep up. Sakura braced herself instantly, instincts from fighting with Tsunade taking over. A blurred impression of bright green was her only warning. She shielded her hands with the flickering dregs of her chakra, grabbing Lee's descending leg by the ankle and snapping it like brittle wood.

There was a brief second when Sakura realized that she had used both hands to break his leg, leaving the rest of her body unguarded. Lee's right arm blurred toward her throat, and then she was choking on blood, staggering away from Lee with her arms held up defensively.

"Sakura?" Lee called, perfectly balanced on his unbroken leg. His eyes widened in concern when she spat blood, grasping her throat with both hands.

Sakura mouthed a curse. He'd collapsed her trachea. Collapsed it! ...it was so completely unfair.

"Give in?" Kakashi called from the sidelines, his book long since put away.

Sakura waved her hand in a gesture she hoped Kakashi would interpret as a yes, and dragged the last bits of her chakra into a medical jutsu. There was no way she could hold Lee off while unable to breath and choking on her own blood. Her hands glowed in preparation for realigning the snapped cartilage—

"Sakura!" Lee dragged her hands away from her throat, eyes bright with anxiety. "I am so sorry! I believed you were guarding your throat!" He stared at her neck intently. "I hope I did not cause too much damage?"

Sakura flailed, trying to jerk her hands free. She needed air!

Suddenly Lee was gone—_way_gone. Like, in the trees on the other side of the Hokage's monument kind of gone.

"You can heal yourself?" Kakashi demanded, taking Lee's place, though thankfully not grabbing her hands.

Sakura set her hands against her neck and _pulled_ and _snapped _the cartilage back into place. She didn't have the chakra needed to numb it, and it hurt worse than the initial hit, but the first ragged breath of air was completely worth it. Sakura coughed up another mouthful of blood, using the dying sparks of her chakra to heal as much of the soft tissue damage as she could.

"Sakura?" Kakashi said, sounding somewhat calmer. "Do you need me to take you to the hospital?"

The last dregs of her chakra clung to her coils with the kind of stubborn insistence that told her she was on the edge of actual chakra exhaustion. Grudgingly, Sakura nodded. She really didn't want to go to the hospital, but was pretty certain that the swelling would make her unable to breathe again within the hour if she didn't.

Kakashi turned around and knelt, indicating that she should get on his back. Sakura considered protesting, but didn't on the basis that she wasn't certain that she could actually speak (breathing was bad enough). Besides, friends probably did this kind of thing for each other all the time. That thought in mind, Sakura settled herself onto Kakashi's back, feeling like she was made of elbows and knees.

He rose easily, with no indication that he even noticed her weight. "Do I need to hurry?" Kakashi asked her, adjusting his grip on her knees so that her legs hooked over his hips—_bony hips_, Sakura decided. She'd have to make sure he ate more.

Sakura shook her head and pointed at her bag insistently. It had Kakashi's medical records in it, and it would be really awkward to have to tell Tsunade that she'd lost it already. Kakashi sighed and leaned down to grab it.

The change in angle made Sakura's legs shift, and she wondered if she'd just brushed one of his nipples with her calf. Her face burnt bright red as soon as she'd realized what she'd thought, because holy crap, _completely _inappropriate thought. Even if, by the calculations Sakura couldn't stop her brain from making, she totally had.

"Are you all right?" Kakashi asked anxiously, craning his head around to look at her. He must have felt the tension in her body or something. _Awkward._

Sakura patted him on the shoulder and nodded adamantly, ignoring the angry stabbing pain in her throat. She gave him a thumbs up, and pointed in the direction of the hospital.

Kakashi slung her bag over his shoulder and started walking.

His hand reached into his belt pouch.

Sakura's interest sparked.

Kakashi's shoulders stiffened the tiniest bit, only noticeable because Sakura was literally pressed right against them. He slid his hand free from his belt pouch.

Sakura sighed in disappointment. Apparently Kakashi had realized that she'd be able to read over his shoulder really, really well.

"You could always get your own copies," Kakashi suggested lightly, patting her knee in what Sakura suspected was fake sympathy.

Sakura sagged against his shoulder in a manner that she hoped would say '_But I want yours'_ and not '_I can't afford them.'_

Birds started singing, deciding that they were safe now. The early evening sun cast thick yellow light across the spring grass, and long shadows from the trees. Kakashi ambled toward town at a comfortable pace that could have lured Sakura into sleep if her throat hadn't been insanely painful. Stupid Lee.

"You did well," he said abruptly.

Sakura froze in the middle of contemplating Kakashi's hair (it was _really_spiky). "Mmm?" she managed to squeeze out of her damaged throat.

"You could have beaten him if you hadn't pulled your hit with the tree," he said. "And once it because a taijutsu match, you did very well, considering how much greater his reach is."

Happiness wiggled in her chest like a giddy kitten. '_Subtle!' _she reminded herself, holding in the happy squeaky noise she wanted to make. '_Act like an adult!'_

The forest opened up to the Konoha wall and the south gate. The smell of food wafted past and Sakura was suddenly very hungry (from the way Kakashi sniffed the breeze, he was too). "I am sorry that you lost?" he said, the tone of his voice turning it into a question.

'_Shit,'_ Sakura thought, suddenly realizing that she might have to repeat the goldfish debacle. Though Kakashi would be there, so maybe it wouldn't result in quite so many dead fish. Sakura still felt a bit guilty about that.

"But seriously. You did good."

Sakura beamed, licking the drying blood from the corners of her mouth. Happiness squirmed inside her.


	7. Gossip and Lies

"You'll be fine?" he asked, watching the waiting room rather than her.

Sakura plucked her bag from his shoulder. Kakashi flinched, like he'd forgotten he was holding it. "Would you mind?" he murmured. Hikari, the on-duty nurse, watched them with intense interest. "If I left, I mean."

Sakura pointed at the door and raised her eyebrows. There was no need for him to stay if he was going to be so twitchy.

Hikari gasped. Sakura glanced over, only to see her duck behind the counter. Sakura frowned in confusion. _What the hell...?_

Kakashi hesitated, an unreadable expression on his face. "You'll be okay, right?"

It was the sixth time he'd asked. Sakura rolled her eyes and gave him her very best (stolen from Tsunade) 'duh' look.

"I should really teach you sign language," he said quietly, tucking his hands into his pockets.

Right. Sign language. Sakura felt like smacking herself. Sign language would be easier, thank you for pointing that out, Kakashi.

Sakura signed _go_, drawing her hand to the side and bringing her fingers together. He really didn't need to stay.

"You'll find me later?" Kakashi glanced at the reception desk. Hikari ducked back down behind the counter. He leaned forward and whispered into Sakura's ear, "Do you know her?"

_Yes._ Sakura replied. She signed Hikari's name with careful fingers.

"Is this normal?"

The sound of a pen scribbling across paper came from Hikari's hiding spot. Sakura peeked from the corner of her eye, catching a glimpse of Hikari's curly hair and a bit of her face. _Yes,_ she signed.

Hikari was a terrible gossip and a total drama queen. This was a bit much, though.

"So I shouldn't get the interrogation squad?" Kakashi asked softly. He pulled his book from his belt pouch in a deceptively casual move, given that Sakura could see the sparkle of steel (senbon needles?) tucked into the pages.

_No! _Sakura signed quickly, tapping her first two fingers against her thumb. _Definitely her. Not a spy!_

"So you're sure you're safe?" Kakashi asked, his brow furrowed.

Okay, that was just enough already. Sakura could handle a gossipy teenager, thank you_ very _much, Kakashi. _Yes._ She pointed at the door. _Go._

Kakashi's eye curved happily and he slouched toward the exit, just slow enough that he wouldn't appear to be running.

Sakura resisted the urge to laugh, certain that it would be very painful if she did, and waved goodbye.

"I'll see you later, right?" Kakashi asked, pausing at the door, more than halfway outside.

Sakura grinned. _Yes, _she signed.

The door closed behind him.

"Sakura! Is it true?_ Please_ tell me that it's true!"

Sakura squeaked and scrambled away from Hikari's very close and very intent face.

"It's so romantic! I never expected it to happen to you." Hikari gave her a critical glance, then continued, "But it's soooooooo sweet and cute and you have to tell me all the details!"

Sakura gestured at her throat. She shifted, uncomfortable with how close Hikari was standing. There were social rules about that.

"Oh. Right." Hikari pouted, acting like she hadn't just taken down all of Sakura's intake information. "I'll go get Tsunade!" she said brightly. "And then you will tell me _all _the details, deal?"

Sakura nodded slowly, ignoring the stabbing pain in her throat that came from moving. It would save her the trouble of waiting for a doctor, deflect Tsunade's ire to Hikari (if there was going to be ire—you never knew with Tsunade), and get her healed instead of drugged—it was like a win-win-win situation.

"Oh my god, I'm so _excited!_" Hikari squealed. "Don't you _dare_ move," she added, pointing at Sakura. "Eeeeeee!" Hikari ran down through the swinging double doors, toward the heart of the hospital, limbs flailing in every direction.

Sakura really hoped she'd be able to figure out what Hikari had been referring to before she had to tell her about it. She suspected it might be the same rumour that Lee had heard, given their levels of excitement. After all, what were the chances that there would be two new rumours about her in the same day?

The rapid click-click of heels on the polished linoleum floor came racing through the same door Hikari had left by, heralding Emi's arrival long before her presence.

"Oh My God! It's _Sakura_!" Emi shrieked, picking her out of the crowd with an accuracy that suggested she'd already known Sakura was there.

Sakura waved uncertainly. People were watching.

Emi's eyes narrowed. "You have to tell me! Is it _true_?"

Sakura pointed at her throat, and gave her an awkward half-smile, trying figure out what had them so excited. Hikari barely even noticed her, usually, and Emi had spoken to her, like, twice in the two years Sakura had been working at the hospital.

Whatever this rumour was, it must be _good._

"What? You can't talk?" Emi stalled, and tapped her index finger against her lower lip, pouting artfully. Her brow furrowed, but not deeply enough to mar her perfectly applied makeup.

Sakura kind of hated her.

"You could nod though, right?" Emi said suddenly, like the thought had just come to her. "I mean, it's pretty yes or no—" she cut off her rambling and leaned closer, bringing the scent of light floral perfume with her. "Are you _really_ engaged to Kakashi _Hatake_?"

One of the ninja in the ER, a few chairs down from her, leaped to his feet, the senbon he'd been chewing on clattering to the floor. Sakura twitched, checking to make sure that he wasn't attacking, but he was leaving, running through the front doors at top speed.

Weird.

"_Well_?" Emi demanded. "If you can't nod, could you, like, blink twice for yes?"

Sakura was still wondering who Emi was talking to (because Kakashi wasn't engaged to anyone. That was crazy talk) when Tsunade stormed through the blue painted doors, Hikari trailing meekly in her wake. "Sakura!"

The familiar bellow triggered an instinctive response, Sakura's body leaping to its feet and facing Tsunade long before her brain caught up with the action.

"You don't look like you're dying," Tsunade snapped, before whirling on Hikari. "You said dying! I don't see any _dying_ here. Do you need remedial classes, nurse?"

Sakura smirked, feeling blissfully safe from Tsunade's wrath...

Wait.

Her? _Engaged_?

Sakura squeaked a really poor attempt at a question, staring at Emi with wide eyes. Her throat protested, then decided that coughing up a lung was definitely the right response.

The vicious rebuke being delivered to Hikari stopped, and Tsunade's heels clacked irately across the gleaming floor. "What happened, and why haven't you healed yourself?" she demanded.

It was _really_ hard to talk when you couldn't stop coughing, and the coughing _really _hurt. She could feel something (probably blood, Sakura decided) trickling down the back of her throat, too.

"No, I have a better question. Why did you let yourself get hurt?" Tsunade asked, pulling Sakura's hands away from her throat. "Honestly, Sakura, I thought I taught you better than that—the first rule is don't get hit!"

Tsunade's hand glowed bright green for an instant, and then Sakura started screaming because Tsunade was making no effort to reduce the pain.

"Please stop, I feel much better!" Sakura cried out, fitting the words between bouts of agonizing pain and raspy screams, in the short intervals when Tsunade paused to prod her throat. Her ability to talk indicated improvement, but Sakura was more interested in making Tsunade stop. She could fix it later, without all the agony. Or at least not quite as much. "Really!"

"Do you want to talk like a six-pack-a-day smoker for the rest of your life?" Tsunade batted Sakura's hands out of the way. "Because you will, if I don't finish."

"I could deal with it!" The last word reached a much higher pitch, and the healing stopped.

Sakura collapsed onto the uncomfortable plastic seating and opened her eyes really wide so the tears wouldn't fall. You didn't show Tsunade weakness lest she try and scour it out of you.

"There!" Tsunade leaned back, looking Sakura over critically. "Now tell me how my apprentice wound up in the Emergency Room with half-healed fractures to her trachea and no chakra?"

Emi and Hikari edged closer, then glared at each other. They were rivals or something, Sakura remembered, a bit too focused on how fantastic not being in pain was to really care.

"Well?"

"Lee challenged me," Sakura said. Her throat didn't hurt at all, beyond the little twinges of phantom pain.

"Oh. My. God!" Emi whisper-squealed, delicately covering her mouth with perfect pink nails.

"I can't believe it!" Hikari hissed, exchanging a meaningful look with Emi before she remembered that she hated her.

Tsunade tapped her foot against the floor impatiently. "Well? Did you win?"

"No," Sakura admitted grudgingly, sinking back in her seat. "He did. I had to surrender after Lee punched me in the throat."

"You gave up?" Tsunade drew back, her eyes narrowed like an offended cat's. "Why didn't you heal yourself? I've been training you for _two years_!"

"I was out of chakra!" Sakura said defensively. "I used most of it healing Kakashi, and then Lee showed up and decided he wanted to challenge me so that I'd date him—"

Offended squeals came from Emi and Hikari, reaching barely audible pitches.

Rumour planted. Sakura held back her smile, because Tsunade would not be amused. Lee may have won, but there was no way in hell she wasn't going to take it out of his hide.

"Hmph." Tsunade watched her, arms folded across her impressive chest, brows drawn together in irritation.

Sakura shivered, but she met Tsunade's furious gaze and kept her chin up.

Tsunade's nostrils flared. "I'm doubling your taijutsu training—no, tripling it!" Tsunade declared, slamming her fist into her hand decisively. "And in a month, you'll challenge that boy and you will win, do you hear me?"

"Yes, Lady Tsunade!" Sakura rose to her feet and saluted before she could stop herself.

"No apprentice of mine will lose to some little _boy_," Tsunade hissed, her fondness for Lee forgotten, so far as Sakura could tell. "I swear, Haruno, if I get Gai gloating in my office I will hunt you down and train you until you wish you'd never been born! Do you understand?" Tsunade growled.

"Yes, Lady Tsunade," Sakura answered, managing to hold back the salute this time. She allowed for a delicate pause, then continued, "But I may have to wait to challenge him."

"Oh?" Tsunade's tone set off bright, flashing warning signals.

A cold sweat broke out over Sakura's shoulders. "I broke his leg," she said, hooking her thumbs over her belt to keep her hands from shaking. "It'll take at least a month and a half to heal."

The wrath cooled to satisfaction, maybe a hint of pleasure. "Excellent, Sakura. I knew I made the right decision when I made you my apprentice."

The tension drained out of the room. "I am pleased that you think so, Lady Tsunade," Sakura replied, dipping her head in a shallow bow, not breaking eye contact. "Though, may I ask you a question?"

"Of course," Tsunade answered, glancing at Emi and Hikari. Her gaze flickered away, dismissing them.

Hikari slunk away first, followed by Emi. They retreated behind the receptionist's desk, rivalry forgotten in the name of gossip.

Sakura leaned forward. Every person in the room was watching, soft-voiced whispers buzzing from the corners like angry bees. "Why did you congratulate me on my engagement?" she murmured, barely moving her lips. This close, she could smell Tsunade—sake and sharp antiseptic over blood and metal.

"Don't you remember? You said yes." The words were breathed, barely there at all. Tsunade smiled, her lipstick gleaming in the fluorescent lights.

Sakura inhaled sharply—Kakashi asking, his pulse twitching just under his skin like frantic bird wings, reduced to a beautiful hot mess by her hand—oh yes, she remembered. The memory was etched into her mind.

"Ah, yes. I find myself recalling..." Sakura murmured, her cheeks flushed light pink. "But why does everyone in the village seem to know?"

"Just doing my part to keep the records up to date," Tsunade said, like she hadn't planted the rumour for her own sick amusement.

Gods, Sakura admired her.

"It was such a romantic proposal," Tsunade said, loud enough for the onlookers to hear, smiling benevolently.

Her words instigated a quick babble of excitement. Emi and Hikari clung to each other, all pretences of working gone.

It was a challenge. Sakura should back down, retreat, and deny the rumour. Stop it before it ever really began.

She didn't _want_ to back down.

"What can I say?" Sakura said, playing for the audience, her voice a tiny bit breathy. "He swept me off my feet."

Tsunade's eyes widened ever so slightly.

Sakura cocked an eyebrow. Her lip curled, baring her teeth. It was almost a smile.

"Again, my heartfelt congratulations. I'm sure you'll be very happy together," Tsunade was smooth, but not smooth enough—Sakura had rattled her.

"Thank you, Tsunade," Sakura nearly left it at that. No names had been named, no details had been given. Future denial was still possible. Impulsiveness was a flaw of hers. "I'll be sure to pass it on to Kakashi."

Hikari squealed and took off running, fighting with Emi to get through the door first. The waiting patients clustered together, whispering excitedly.

Tsunade studied her, assessing, weighing, and judging, before the corner of her mouth quirked up. "I can't believe you just did that," she murmured. "I'm so...proud."

The bottom of her stomach dropped to her knees, but Sakura refused to show it. Fucking with people's heads was a time-honoured ninja tradition, and Sakura could do it too, if she wanted.

"Looks like that nurse forgot that she was on duty," Tsunade said, nodding to the reception desk. "Why don't you take over?"

Sakura went for one last spur-of-the-moment gambit. "I can't. I need to go find a ring," she said, quiet enough that only Tsunade would hear.

Tsunade laughed, deep and rich and the slightest bit malicious. "Don't let me stop you, kid."

Sakura retreated, head held high, back straight, and pretended she didn't notice the stares. Her hands were shaking because she was tired, she reassured herself.

* * *

She had exactly one ryo in her pocket.

Sakura flipped the coin, watching it sparkle in the fading sunlight. She could get two instant ramen containers for one ryo. Or an apple.

Sakura dropped the coin into the slot and cranked the handle. Gears inside the machine groaned and a clear plastic ball fell toward the slot at the bottom.

Sakura snatched the ball before anyone on the street could see, and started walking, heading home. There was a tiny plastic bag holding her prize and an even tinier instruction manual, telling her to "put on finger" in three different languages.

The silver-coloured band sparkled, and Sakura almost considered just tucking it in her pocket. She knew it was a bad idea. She really did.

Tiny elephants circled the ring, their eyes painted in black, the brush having missed their faces entirely in several cases.

Sakura had always liked elephants.

She worried her lip, rolling the ring across her palm. It was cheap. Obviously so. Probably made from Earth Country tin to boot.

Kakashi wouldn't have bought something so cheap. She couldn't imagine him buying anything, but certainly not such a cheap ring. She frowned, and decided he would have stolen something expensive. The ring wouldn't fool anyone who knew him.

Emi and Hikari would believe, though. And it wasn't like anyone else would ask to see it.

Sakura sighed, wondering how her better judgement always got over-ruled by her pride, and slid it on.

The band fit perfectly on her ring finger. Sakura nodded to herself, and tossed the packaging into the recycling. She would keep playing the game until it crashed and burned around her. After all, why—

"Sakura," Kakashi's voice carried, echoing in the nearly empty street.

—not?

Dread was a strange emotion. It concealed itself in cracks, growing like hidden tree roots, and hinted there was something you had forgotten, but it never bothered to tell you what.

Sakura felt dread. "Hey!" She waved, squinting up at the rooftops to find his silhouette.

He jumped, landing beside her with only a whisper of sound and the ghost of a breeze. "You sound better," Kakashi said, probing for more information.

"Tsunade healed me," Sakura answered, touching her fingers to her throat. Phantom pain flickered under her skin, her body still not convinced that it had nothing to complain about.

"Oh." Kakashi scratched the back of his head. Sakura felt his chakra thrum like the strings of a cello. It felt strong and deep, and Sakura was struck again by the difference that the pressure points had made. "Look, Sakura..."

The guy from the emergency room was watching them. "Do you know him?" Sakura asked.

"Yeah, he's..." Kakashi trailed off, and looked at her.

Sakura broke eye contact, wondering if she'd done something wrong. They were having an awkward silence. She hated those. "Kakashi?"

"Did you hear the rumour Lee was talking about?" Kakashi asked.

Dread coalesced into fear. Sakura shoved her hand into her pocket, hiding the ring. "No," she lied. "Why, did you?"

Kakashi paused, watching the guy across the street. "No," he said, and relief crashed over Sakura. He didn't know. It was cool. He wouldn't quit being her friend if he never found out.

The ring felt heavy on her finger, and Sakura really wished that she'd bought ramen instead. "So."

"Yep." Kakashi hadn't stopped watching the guy from the emergency room.

"Is he a threat?" Sakura asked.

"What? No. Just a..." Kakashi stole a glance at her from the corner of his eye. "He isn't a threat."

Sakura nodded, accepting that it was probably something classified. "Do you need to go? It's getting kind of late," she said, trying to provide him with an easy exit. Her stomach rolled, and Sakura hoped (pitifully—surely she wasn't _that_ desperate for a friend) that his medical leave hadn't been revoked already.

"No. I—" Kakashi ducked his head, hitai-ate shining gold in the setting sun. "I was going to walk you home. If that's okay. I can leave—"

"No," Sakura said, "I don't mind."

"Oh. Good." Kakashi smiled.

Sakura's heart settled. The streetlights started flickering on, one after the other. "What did you do? When you left?" There had been a good hour of time where they'd been apart. He could have done something interesting.

"Read, mostly." Kakashi's voice lightened, and his back straightened, "Saw someone I know, but he had nothing important to say."

"Oh." Sakura wished she could tell him about the emergency room. It would have made a good story, if she hadn't intentionally spread rumours about them. "New book?"

"Not yet," Kakashi sighed wistfully, then changed the subject. "How was the healing?"

"Like drinking battery acid."

"Ow," Kakashi said sympathetically, hand drifting toward his neck, then shoved into his pocket. "You're okay, now?"

"Never better," Sakura said. She stopped at the entrance to her apartment complex, ignoring the peeling paint and graffiti with the ease of long practice.

The guy was still watching them.

"Are you sure you don't have to leave?" Sakura asked.

"Not unless you want me to," Kakashi said, sounding a tiny bit hurt.

"No!" Sakura answered. "It's just...He keeps staring at you." Sakura kind of wanted to storm over there and ask the guy what the hell his problem was, but the risk of it being official business stopped her. "...He's creepy," she muttered.

"I couldn't agree more," Kakashi replied. "Don't worry about him. He's mostly harmless." Kakashi paused and thought about it. "Actually, if he tries to talk to you..."

Her key clicked in the lock, and Sakura held open the door for Kakashi. He was in the middle of a sentence. It would be rude to cut him off.

"He's a bit of a pervert—actually, he's a huge pervert," Kakashi corrected himself, following her through the door. "So feel free to break his jaw if he tries to talk to you."

Sakura paused mid-step. "That seems awfully extreme for 'mostly harmless.'"

Kakashi laughed abruptly. "Well, you know. Better safe than sorry."

"I see." Obviously there was something Kakashi couldn't tell her. She stepped over the suspicious stain (it had been there for three months, but grown no less suspicious), taking the good stairwell up. There was usually someone sleeping in the bad stairwell.

"Did you ever find out what was wrong with that nurse?" Kakashi asked.

"She's just—you know," Sakura said, shrugging uncomfortably, filling 'you know' with as much innuendo as she could. Hopefully Kakashi would manufacture something that made sense—

"Oh." Kakashi sounded shocked. "Really?"

"Mmmhmm," Sakura answered, slowing down as she approached her apartment.

"That—I didn't know," he said apologetically. "I wouldn't have implied—"

"It's okay. Just don't, like, spread it around, okay?" Sakura said, hoping he wouldn't, because even though she had no idea what he'd come up with, she was certain that it wasn't true.

"I don't spread rumours," Kakashi said. He looked up, as if only just noticing that they were in front of her door. "Good night?"

Sakura worried the cheap ring with her thumb. Kakashi was never, ever going to find out what she had done. "Yeah. Good night," she said ducking inside. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Kakashi answered, arm half-raised to wave goodbye. "You're working?"

"From six until two," Sakura answered. "Then I have training—Tsunade wasn't pleased that I lost. She's tripling my taijutsu training. That will last until five—tomorrow's my short day, or I'd be there until twelve," Sakura said, not wanting Kakashi to think that she usually trained for only an hour a day. "But after that I'm free."

"Would you like to meet?" he asked, staring at a cigarette burn in the carpet.

"Yes." Sakura grinned. "Don't suppose I could get you to spring for dinner?"

Kakashi laughed. "I'll see you tomorrow," he said.

"Good night," Sakura said, closing the door. She hesitated, then cracked it open again. "I'll see you tomorrow!"

Sakura shut the door for the second time, and slid down it, her hand pressed over her mouth to keep from laughing.

Her door was cheap and thin, with a wide gap at the bottom. No sound proofing.

Kakashi was humming.

* * *

"Sooooo."

Sakura looked up from the patient file, scribbling a note. "Yeah?" she asked, looking over the nurses who'd crowded into the office she was borrowing today. "Do you need the room?"

They tittered, like she'd said something very funny. Sakura tried a smile.

The nurses were all civilians or genin who hadn't been suited to combat. Being twelve and apprenticed to the Tsunade had put a gap as deep the Wind Valley Gorge between her and them. Matters hadn't exactly improved in the last two years. She didn't even know most of their names.

"Oh come on, you can't keep all those juicy details to yourself!" Hikari said, surging to the front. "What's he like? How did he propose?"

Much to her horror, Sakura felt her cheeks heating up, the memory of Kakashi's naked, unmeant proposal suddenly embarrassing. Tsunade would be so disappointed in her.

"You're blushing!" Emi said, obviously delighted. "Come on, you have to tell us!"

Sakura closed the patient file and added it to her stack. "I'm sorry, I've got to go." She checked the clock and added, "To lunch," hoping the nurses would get the hint and back off. She considered denying the engagement rumour all together, but Hikari and Emi's presence made it unlikely that they would believe her.

"With Kakashi?" a woman Sakura had never spoken to asked eagerly.

"Huh? No, the cafeteria," Sakura said.

There was a great moment of stillness. "You _eat_ there?" Emi asked delicately, as if she must have somehow misheard.

Sakura nodded and pushed through the packed bodies as gently as she could, ignoring their disappointed protests. "It's free, and the fact that I can't identify the source of most of the food actually lessens my revulsion."

"But it's gross," Aimi said, distressed. "_No one_ eats there."

"I do," Sakura said, opening the door. "Now, was there anything else?"

"If we buy you lunch, will you tell us the details?" Hikari asked.

Sakura paused. _Fooooooooood, _her bad-judgment whined, dragging her stomach and mouth along with it.

Kakashi couldn't know about the rumour—or rather, he couldn't know that she'd helped to spread it. It wasn't like he wasn't going to find out eventually, after all.

"Where, precisely, do you propose to go?" Sakura asked, justifying her decision rapidly. Kakashi would understand. He'd practically made an art form out of mooching. Of course he'd understand!

"Ah." Hikari drew back, looking almost wary. "I don't know, where would you like to go?"

Sakura surveyed the gathered nurses, calculating how badly they wanted the gossip. Her lips twisted into an unholy grin. "I'm feeling like sushi. From the place across the street." She couldn't remember its name, but the prices had stuck out in her memory.

Hikari glanced at Emi, then Aimi. "Okay, but it better be worth it."

"Oh it is," Sakura replied, already imagining the sweet, free food. "So worth it."

"Did he get you a ring?" Emi asked, leaning forward.

Sakura hummed, selecting a piece of salmon. It was so fresh!

"Let us see!" Aimi exclaimed.

Sakura looked away from the translucent pink flesh, confused. "What?"

"The ring!" Emi said. "Did he get you one with a diamond?"

"He's a jonin, right? He could so afford one!" Hikari interjected.

Sakura thought of the elephant ring, forgotten on her bathroom counter. "Well..." Sakura dipped the edge of the salmon into the soy sauce, admiring how the lighting made the fish seem to glow. Beautiful. "I didn't wear the ring," she prevaricated, biting into the tender meat.

Wide-eyed shock greeted her response. Sakura shrugged, selecting a pretty roll covered in bright red fish eggs. She didn't know what half of the lovely little pieces of rice and fish were made of, but Sakura hadn't yet tasted one she didn't like.

One of the three women Sakura had never met leaned forward, clutching her tea to her chest. "Do you not want to marry him?"

"Are you being forced to marry him?" someone else asked, sounding more excited about that idea than she been about the proposal.

"Is it a secret ninja marriage ritual?" Aimi questioned. Her face glowed with vicarious excitement.

Sakura chewed slowly, uncomfortably aware of the complete and total attention she was getting. She really didn't understand the civilian obsession with secret ninja rituals. There weren't that many of them and most involved silly superstitions like naming your kunai so they wouldn't get lost.

Hikari gasped. "Are you _pregnant_?" she whispered, loud enough that the people at the next table could hear.

Sakura swallowed quickly. "I'm not wearing the ring because I didn't want to lose it, break it or get it yucky at the clinic. So far as I'm aware, there are no secret ninja marriage rituals—"

Aimi's face fell. Sakura almost felt bad.

"And I'm not pregnant," Sakura finished, raising her voice a tiny bit so that the eavesdropping tables around theirs could hear. Some things needed to be nipped in the bud.

"Oh." Emi sounded incredibly disappointed, and the women circling the table mirrored her expression. "That's too bad."

There was a moment of silence where Sakura selected another artistically prepared piece of sushi and debated whether to tell the nurses that she had no desire to have children, much less so soon after the not-happening wedding, or if she should just let it roll.

"How did he propose?" Kiku asked, then ducked her head, her chin-length hair falling in front of her face.

Sakura popped the roll into her mouth, contemplating how to answer (not with the truth, was her initial decision). Oh—avocado! Sakura smiled blissfully, savouring the buttery vegetable.

She actually liked Kiku. Sometimes they even talked. With that in mind, Sakura answered as close to honestly as she could. "He just blurted it out in the middle of talking about something completely different. He had a ring, though."

Sakura knew that Kakashi owned at least one ring, so it wasn't false, just incredibly misleading.

"So cute!" Emi decided, beaming. "What did Kakashi say?"

Sakura frowned, a little peeved that Emi was using Kakashi's first name so casually. She'd never even met him. "He said, 'Marry me,' What did you think he'd say?"

"Did he tell you that he loved you?"

"Did he get down on one knee?"

"Did you see his face?" Aimi asked. The other nurses went quiet. Sakura thought they might be holding their breath.

"Well, not then. Tsunade was there," Sakura said cheerfully. It wasn't _un_true...

The customers at the other tables burst into furious conversation. Sakura resisted the urge to preen. Hell yeah she was good.

"You've seen his face?" One woman—old enough to be Kakashi's mom—squealed. "What does he look like?"

Sakura snatched the last piece of sushi on her plate and stood up. "Sorry guys, my break is over," she said. "Thanks for lunch!" Sakura bit into the roll, savouring the tempura fried shrimp in the centre, and strolled toward the door, hoping that none of them noticed how little sushi was left on their plates.

A hand on her arm stopped her before she could get out the door. Sakura stopped and smiled as innocently as she could—no, of course she didn't have half a plate of sushi in her kunai pouch, why would you even ask? "Yes?"

"Um... I just wanted to congratulate you," Kiku said. She blushed and looked away. "I know it must be annoying, everyone asking so many questions, but I'm sure they're all very happy for you."

"Aw, thanks, Kiku," Sakura said, oddly touched. "That's very kind of you."

She smiled. "I'll see you later?"

"Of course," Sakura replied, ducking out the door and waving. "Bye!" she called, jogging across the street to the hospital.

* * *

"Shizune?" Sakura called, poking her head into the Medical Ninja's Lounge. "You here? I need a second opinion—"

"You!" Shizune exclaimed, poking Sakura in the chest. "What are you _thinking_?" she demanded.

Sakura held the file folder in front of herself defensively. "Ah—that he has a bone splinter from breaking a rib? But the x-ray is blurry and I thought I'd double check..."

Shizune grabbed the chest x-ray and held it up to the light. "Yep, bone splinter. Good call," she said, handing it back.

That was a relief, Sakura thought, tucking it into the folder. "Great, I'll go—"

"You are going _nowhere_," Shizune snapped, running her hands through her hair, ruining the sleek lines she favoured. "Sit down."

Sakura sat.

It took a couple seconds for Shizune to pull herself together. "You're engaged? To your _jonin-sensei_?" Shizune asked stridently, saying _jonin-sensei_ like it meant 'filthy pervert who fucks corpses.' "Did he...?"

Was there an excuse for deliberately feeding rumours about yourself so you could profit off other people's interest? Sakura was unsure. "I...ahhhh—that is..." Sakura fumbled for words. "I mean..."

"I'm going to castrate him," Shizune said in a tone of revelation, like she'd just realized her deepest desire. "Sakura? I need you to stay here and swear that I was with you the whole time."

A puff of smoke billowed up beside her, clearing to reveal a clone. "My shadow clone will be, so it'll be almost like the truth, right Sakura?" she said, patting Sakura on the hand.

"It's not what you think!" Sakura said, grabbing Shizune before she could teleport out. "Please don't castrate Kakashi?"

"I knew it!" Shizune crowed. "Tsunade was way too blasé about it!" She dropped into the chair opposite Sakura, her face serious again. "But I hope you know that if you need a man castrated, for any reason, I am here for you."

She hadn't known that. Sakura smiled, touched by Shizune's concern.

"He wouldn't even know it was done until the agonizing pain set in," Shizune swore, slamming her hands together. Her shadow clone burst into a cloud of smoke.

"But enough about that. Tell me what's going on. Why are the Hyenas telling me that you're getting married to a guy fourteen years older than you?"

Sakura looked away. "I didn't _start_ the rumour, okay?"

"Didn't think you did. I am curious as to why you didn't deny it, though."

"They offered to buy me lunch if I told them all about it," Sakura admitted. "So I made them take me to _Ginza Kyubei_."

"You're growing up so _fast_," Shizune said, wiping away a fake tear. "Was it good?"

Sakura pulled the bag of sushi from her kunai pouch. "Wanna try?" she asked brightly. "It's a little smushed, but I assure you, it was excellent."

"Did you really—?"

"Steal the leftovers?" Sakura finished the sentence for her, too pleased with herself not to. "Yes, yes I did."

"You are such a good student," Shizune said, her face alight with pride. "Hand it over, I didn't take a lunch break."

Sakura gave her the bag, picking out one last piece of salmon for herself. "Like stealing candy from coma patients," she said cheerfully, eating the still chilled fish.

"Oh this is so good," Shizune said. "Definitely worth it."

"Totally. Now I just have to explain to Kakashi why everyone thinks we're getting married." Sakura paused. "Maybe I should have saved some for him," she said, eyeing the rapidly disappearing food.

"Oh it wouldn't be any good, later," Shizune said, biting a piece of fresh tuna in half. "And I appreciate it so much more than he would."

"Sakura?" Kiku knocked on the door, not daring to enter. Medic nin were notoriously territorial over their lounge. "Your patient...?"

The folder on the lunch table glared at her accusingly. "Right! Thank you for your help, Shizune!" Sakura said, tucking the papers under her arm and heading out like she'd been intending to do so the whole time. "Couldn't have done it without you."

"You're welcome, Sakura, but you owe me the rest of the story, later."

"Tsunade tripled my training, so I'm out there until five. Feel free to drop by," she replied cheerfully, waving as she ducked out the door.

* * *

The rumour must have spread. Strangers were pointing at her, whispering behind their hands.

Sakura checked to make sure she was wearing clothes, because, hey, second possible explanation for the interest. Dress, shorts, various bags, belts, everything fully buckled—check!

Must be the rumour.

"Forehead!"

Sakura hesitated, looking up at the familiar cat-call.

Ino waved at her impatiently from the door of her parent's shop. Blue plastic gloves covered her hands to the elbows. She must have been working on poisons.

"What?" Sakura called, pausing by a lamppost. It creaked alarmingly, swaying as a ninja used it as a launching pad to reach a second story roof.

"Get over here," Ino demanded impatiently, peeling off her gloves and tucking them, inside out, into her apron's side pockets.

Hope crept into Sakura's heart, rooting itself in the cracks. Ino had never really forgiven her for breaking their friendship over 'that traitorous fucker' and Sakura had never quite forgiven Ino for calling Sasuke a traitor. Mostly, they didn't talk.

Sakura checked her watch. She had fifteen minutes to get to her training grounds, and if she sprinted, she could make it in five. Casual, she reminded herself, wandering toward Ino at a pace only slightly faster than a saunter. Looking too eager would give Ino the advantage.

"What's up?" she asked, then mentally kicked herself. 'What's up' was _so_ last year.

Ino didn't seem to notice. "You have got some pretty spectacular rumours sprouting, Forehead."

The little sparks of hope died, crushed by disappointment. Of course Ino just wanted the gossip. "Yeah?" Sakura replied, checking her watch again. She could pretend to be running late.

"Fuck yeah," Ino said, tugging on the end of her ponytail. "Did you know that people are saying you're getting married to that old guy who used to be your sensei?"

"Actually, I did," Sakura replied, barely restraining herself from snapping that Kakashi wasn't old, thank you very much. "Why do you care?"

"Why do I—" Ino looked like she'd been smacked. "You know what? Fuck you. Your dad is looking for you."

Shit. Sakura hadn't even thought of that. "Does he know?" she asked, checking the street to make sure he wasn't coming toward her. "Please tell me he doesn't know—"

"He was saying something about his ungrateful bitch of a daughter, so yeah, I think he knows. Have fun with that." Ino crossed her arms across her chest.

Sakura looked across the street, peering into the shadows of her parent's store. She didn't recognize the clerk, but that didn't mean anything. Her dad might be in the back. "Gods be damned," she muttered.

Ino sniffed, flicking her ponytail over her shoulder. "I'd say. How are you going to explain this one, huh?"

"I'm not," Sakura said. She'd successfully avoided her dad for five months and she really, _really _didn't want to break the record. "Look, Ino..." Sakura hesitated, but forged onward. "Thanks."

Ino grinned and for a second Sakura felt twelve again. "Anytime, Forehead."

"Whatever, Pig." Sakura flicked her fingers dismissively and ran up the side of the lamppost, taking to the rooftops.

"See ya!" Ino called from the street, mocking, but kind of something else, too.


	8. Landing Badly

Sakura checked her watch again.

Four forty-five.

She sighed and started stretching. Shizune must have gotten caught up in something at the hospital.

The afternoon sun felt like full summer had already arrived, beating down merrily on the small clearing. Sakura had healed her skin from incipient sun burn three times since Tsunade had left.

Sakura closed her eyes, pushing herself down until her chest and stomach pressed against the length of her leg. Her back popped and cracked.

A gentle breeze danced over the leaves, cooling the layer of sweat on her skin. Sakura switched legs, holding the position for thirty seconds, too bored to do any more than the bare necessity.

She'd hoped that someone would show up, but she hadn't heard anyone nearby since Tsunade left at two thirty.

Sakura sighed again, forcing the pout off her face. Shizune and Kakashi were both jonin with busy schedules, it was ridiculous to be put out because they didn't come see her. She was lucky to spend as much time with the higher ranks as she did. Most chuunin only worked with jonin once in a blue moon, excluding the jonin who taught them.

Of course, most chuunin were teamed with their old genin squad.

Sakura stood up, checking her watch. It was only four fifty, but she was sick of training. She kicked a rock into a tree, lodging it three inches deep.

There was a feeder channel of the Konoha River that passed by the edge of the training ground. It filled a clear pool in the ground that had been excavated by one of Sakura's fists, the first time she'd managed to direct chakra through her knuckles with enough power to shatter rock. She liked the pool.

She tossed her dress onto a branch of the only surviving tree in the trunk-studded clearing—the others had been destroyed in games of 'Protect the Client-Tree,' but she'd managed to save the young willow from Tsunade's attacks. Sakura liked the tree, too.

Sakura tugged on the ties of the bandages that she used in the place of a bra when training, then left them. Kakashi usually showed up late, and she'd rather not be completely naked if he did come by. With that thought in mind, she left her shorts on, too.

The water was nearly freezing compared to the air. Sakura lifted her toes out, then jumped in feet first.

She sank in a flurry of bubbles, dropping until her heels touched the shattered gravel and fissured stone at the bottom. A touch of chakra anchored her to the largest rock, and Sakura stared up through the splashing, sloshing water, ripples of sunlight dancing over her skin.

Sakura started counting. Rumours said that Mist had developed a jutsu that allowed one to breathe under the waves. Sometimes Sakura dreamed of exploring the sea like that. Somewhere warm, like Haha Island, where the bright, colourful fish lived.

Her lungs twitched, trying to breathe. Tiny air pockets in her hair slid over her scalp then drifted toward the surface, sparking silver in the sunlight.

_Seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two..._

She stripped the oxygen from the air in her lungs, holding it separate. It was getting harder to concentrate.

Sakura opened her mouth, letting the oxygen-depleted air in her lungs pour out in a long, snake-like bubble held together by her chakra. The glimmer of green energy inside it was oddly lovely, like fire flies had hidden in the scant air.

She let the bubble float away, holding her control over it until just below the surface, where she made it burst.

_Two hundred, two hundred one, two hundred two, two hundred three..._

Her chakra control wavered, nearly dislodging her from the rock holding her down. Her chest thrummed, desperate for air.

There was enough oxygen in her, despite the sense that she was drowning. Sakura overrode her body's protests.

_Three hundred fifty, three hundred fifty-one, three hundred fifty-two, three hundred fifty-three..._

Sakura gritted her teeth, recirculating the last dregs of oxygen in her blood, forcing her cells to accept it. Her vision darkened at the edges.

Her counting sped up, not counting seconds but heartbeats.

_Four-hundred-eighty, four-hundred-eighty-one, four-hundred-eighty-two..._

Her hair swayed in front of her, purple in the blue light. Sakura concentrated on the cool current over her skin, the gentle movement of her hair. Her peripheral vision was nearly gone, and black star-bursts were eating the rest.

_Fivehundredninetyeight, Fivehundredninetynine— _

She closed her eyes, stopped counting and listened to the frantic shivering of her heart rattle like war drums in her ears. Someone was practicing earth jutsu to the west, the rumble and groan of the earth telegraphed through the bedrock.

_Six Hundred._

Sakura released the chakra holding her to the rock, kicked off and drove herself through the water toward the surface.

The border between the water and air parted around her hands, and then her head. Sakura sucked in air, frantic and uncontrolled. She let her limbs float to the surface, buoyancy aided by a touch of chakra.

The end of the bandage around her chest pulled loose and drifted lazily with the current. Her hair stuck to her face like a lovelorn octopus.

"Ten minutes."

Sakura didn't jump, largely because she was still trying to convince her lungs that the air wasn't going to disappear in the next two minutes and inhaling all of it was unnecessary.

"Tsunade—can last—for an_ hour_," she said as her eyesight returned, all the brighter for having been gone.

"Have you considered that comparing yourself to the greatest medic ninja of all time might be a trifle ambitious?" Kakashi sat at the edge, gingerly dipping his toes in the water. "She's what, forty years older than you?"

Sakura laughed unsteadily, her breathing not yet normal. "Thirty-seven, actually."

The ground rumbled, shaking the leaves of the willow. Tiny ripples danced from the edges of the pool, colliding into a discontinuous shimmer of sun and shadow.

Kakashi shrugged his vest off and folded it carefully into a square, placing it further away from the pool. "Sorry I'm late," he said, brushing invisible dust from the green fabric. "I got lost trying to find you."

"Liar," Sakura said, grinning. She tucked the trailing end of her bandage-bra back under the rest of her wrappings.

"Actually, I didn't know where you trained," Kakashi replied, amusement lacing his voice.

Sakura rolled over and swam to the edge, clambering out onto the warm rocks. "So how'd you find me?"

"I, um." Kakashi was suddenly very interested in the bandages holding his pants legs in place, tugging the ends free and unwrapping them with impressive focus.

Sakura sprawled over the rock, basking in the sunlight. She was going to have to heal her skin again, but it felt soooo good. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"I asked Tsunade," he admitted, coiling a bandage around two fingers to make a roll.

"Oh." Sakura looked down. "Did she...say anything?" She secretly congratulated herself, because that could refer to either the fake engagement_ or _Kakashi's suicide attempt.

Sakura shivered, the water on her skin drying cold.

"She laughed," Kakashi said, setting his bandages on top of his vest. He slid off his gloves, tucking them into a pocket on his jonin vest.

Sakura sat up, dropping her feet back in the water. "Are you going to swim?" she asked, shoving a few more strands of hair behind her ears. He'd never gone swimming with them, back when there was a Team Seven. Sakura kind of understood, now, but back then, Naruto's conclusion that Kakashi was afraid of water had seemed completely logical.

Kakashi looked at his vest. "I'm...thinking about it," he said, rubbing his thumb over the strap holding his kunai pouch to his thigh. "It's very hot out."

A memory struck and Sakura snickered. "Do you remember that time when we tried to set a trap to knock you into the water?"

Kakashi laughed. "How could I forget?" he asked her, and he was grinning under the mask, she just knew it.

Sakura beamed. "Sasuke and I had a bet going—did you use genjutsu? Or did you teleport out?"

"That's a secret," Kakashi said solemnly, his eye twinkling. "Jonins only."

She stuck her tongue out. "Meanie. Sasuke would owe me fifty ryo by now if you used ninjutsu."

"Seeeeecret," Kakashi intoned, wiggling his fingers. He raised his eyebrow. "I thought the two of you kept the bet amounts below five ryo?"

"Interest," Sakura said. "He's going to owe me so much money by the time he gets back—" her voice faltered and she looked away. "But yeah. We really thought our plan was fool-proof, that time."

Kakashi poked her shoulder. "You're kidding, right?" He watched her, assessing, then continued. "It was a rope tied between two trees, right next to the river. I would have to be walking into the river to trip on it."

"We were going to ambush you..." Sakura trailed off, blushing as she remembered their 'fool-proof' plan. "Naruto thought it up. In retrospect, fool-made probably isn't 'almost the same' as fool-proof."

Kakashi chuckled, swinging his foot through the water. "Tell me more. I never knew what you little reprobates were thinking unless I eavesdropped."

Sakura's blush grew hotter as she wondered how much of her honestly pretty embarrassing youth he'd overheard. "Um..."

"I almost never did," he reassured her, rolling up his pants legs to his knees.

"We were going to throw spiders at you until you tripped over the rope and fell in, because Sasuke was certain that you were afraid of spiders," Sakura blurted out, "but we couldn't find enough spiders, and Naruto kept naming the ones we _did_find, and then he wouldn't let us throw them because he'd gotten attached, so we used fish instead."

Kakashi looked up. "Spiders—"

"Yeah."

He shook his head, then said, "Ninjutsu. You exploded a shadow clone by slapping it with a trout, and I hold the memory as one of the few times when I truly had no clue what the hell was going on."

Sakura cracked up, setting Kakashi off. "Don't you get the memory of the clones?"

"I was in a jonin meeting," he said, muffling his laughter with his hand. "Pretty sure I looked like I'd just been smacked with a fish."

She laughed until she couldn't breathe, then shoved Kakashi off the edge and into the water.

"Brat!" he yelped, sinking in to his thighs before he managed to drag himself onto the surface.

Sakura laughed even harder, barely able to move. "Now Naruto owes me money!" she wheezed, giggling soundlessly.

Kakashi unbuckled the leather strap around his thigh, slowly, ominously, storm clouds gathering behind him in a minor environmental genjutsu.

"Oooo, scary!" Sakura laughed, dancing onto the water, chakra fizzing under her feet.

Kakashi set his kunai pouch next to his vest, then removed the one on his belt. "You have made a horrible mistake," he warned her.

"Gonna take your shirt off?" Sakura asked, ignoring his threats. She bounced on her toes, grinning so hard that her face hurt.

"I—" Kakashi hesitated, then peeled off his long sleeved shirt, his mask remaining neatly in place. "Wouldn't want it to get wet," he said, his chest flushing light pink.

Sakura clapped her hands delightedly. "Come on!" she called, diving into the water. Four feet under, she twisted, spinning through the sparkling cloud of bubbles she caused, and headed back to the surface.

Kakashi peered down at her, wobbly and weird looking through the distorting water. He was very close.

Sakura squeaked, a stream of bubbles pouring from her mouth, and smacked his ankle. Kakashi wobbled and fell to his knees, drawing a startled grunt and probably bruising his leg.

"The water's fine," Sakura recovered, her head above the water. She observed the rippling muscles of his chest with interest and counted his nipples again, just for the hell of it (there were still six!). He was so close...she could reach out and grope him, if she wanted.

She really wanted.

Kakashi folded his arms across his chest, managing to obscure one set of nipples from her view. "Really, Sakura?"

"Huh?" She blinked, distracted from the_ really _cute blush spreading over his skin. It made his nipples all pink and adorable and—

"Sakura!"

"What?" Sakura said, jerking her eyes away from his _perfect_torso. It was unfair that he was so pretty. How was she supposed to pay attention to things?

"Do I need to put my shirt back on?" he asked her. Sakura noted, that, despite his rapidly deepening blush, Kakashi wasn't making a single move toward shore.

"No," she said cheerfully. Sakura sank under the water and grabbed his leg, trying to drag him under.

Kakashi stayed stubbornly above the surface.

Sakura pouted and re-surfaced. "You're supposed to let me pull you under," she complained.

"Am I playing wrong?" he asked her, voice oozing with fake sympathy.

Sakura nodded, then remembered that there was more than one way to get someone wet. She slapped the water beside him with chakra enhanced strength, splashing a ten foot fountain of mist and droplets into the air.

Kakashi squeezed his eye shut until the water stopped falling on him, then disappeared, not even a ripple to betray where he'd gone.

Sakura slipped under the water, watching the sky warily. Hands grabbed her ankles, dragging her deeper. Sakura thrashed until he let go, then grabbed a breath of air and dove after him.

Kakashi waved at her, grinning. His hair looked soft and flowing in the filtered sunlight, pretty white-blue tendrils that swayed gently in the weak current.

In a burst of inspiration, Sakura formed the hand seals for an odd little jutsu—_Boar, Rat, Tiger, Bird_—and spun the chakra that flowed out of her fingers, giving it a long, slender shape.

Kakashi raised his eyebrow and swam a few inches to the right, out of the way of her totally awesome water tentacles. Sakura pouted and let them dissipate.

He pointed at the surface, then swam up.

Sakura followed, slightly dejected at her tentacles' failure to grop—_attack_. She'd been attacking. Obviously.

"Did you just attack me with tentacles?" Kakashi asked as soon as her head was above the water.

"Maybe," Sakura said, slapping a wave of water at his face.

Kakashi splashed her back. "I _want_that jutsu," he said.

"My jutsu!" she declared. She'd created it from a medical jutsu that did something completely different and had immediately regretted having an apartment with a shower instead of a bath. "But I _might_—"

"Sakura?"

Sakura froze, glancing toward the edge of the clearing.

Shizune called out again, "You there?"

"How long can you hold your breath?" Sakura whispered.

"A couple of minutes. Why?"

"Okay, you've got to go under, now. Or Shizune will castrate you."

"She'll what?"

Sakura grimaced. "Okay, there's this rumour about us, okay? And Shizune found out and now she's going to castrate you if she sees us together, like, wet and half naked, yeah? And that's bad because you need those."

She fumbled with the words, embarrassed to even say them. Sakura didn't understand why it was so hard. There wasn't a single thing she was too embarrassed to tell a patient anymore and that included 'Next time, use something that has a flange.'

"I agree," he muttered. "She knows that rumour...isn't...true, right?" Sakura had never heard him sound so awkward, not even when he'd been stark naked and slowly coming out of a orgasm-induced haze.

She stopped, realizing something. "Shit, you_ know_?"

Kakashi blushed and damn near sank before he remembered to swim. "I found out last night—I was going to tell you—"

"Sakura?" Shizune's voice filtered through the trees.

"Over here," Sakura yelled, then switched to a harsh whisper, "As your primary medic, I'm telling you that you need to go under _now_. For the sake of your..."

Kakashi was gone.

"...future hormonal health," Sakura finished, rolling her eyes. Jonin.

"I'm so glad you're still here!" Shizune said cheerfully. "I got caught talking to those harpies, and they would not let me go until I told them every detail I knew about your whirlwind romance and engagement." She sat at the edge of the pond, sighing heavily.

Sakura smiled brightly. "So? What did you tell them?" she asked, splashing as she swam toward Shizune because Kakashi was _right behind her,_grabbing his clothes.

"You fell in love on a hush-hush undercover mission where you were forced to use your burgeoning sexual wiles to seduce a lecherous old man with a fondness for pink-haired, barely pubescent—"

"Hey!" Sakura protested. She might be kind of flat, but barely pubescent was pretty harsh.

Kakashi used some kind of jutsu that dried him off.

"—don't worry, you were thirteen at the time," Shizune explained, hand-waving the whole issue.

"And Kakashi fell in love with me? _Ew_." Thirteen was way too young for that kind of thing. ...Totally. _Because fifteen is so much better,_she thought, glum for reasons she didn't care to examine.

Kakashi wrapped his pant legs with bandages and strapped on his various belts and pouches, completely silent. He looked far less incriminating fully dressed, compared to his previous state of half-naked and soaking wet.

"What? No! You fell in love. Kakashi was justifiably upset at the cruelty of making a child take such missions, and so he challenged Tsunade in hand to hand combat for your honour—"

Sakura laughed. "He did _what_?"

Shizune grinned, kicking a spray of water into the air. "They bought it hook, line, and sinker."

"Did I win?" Kakashi asked, barely dodging the senbon Shizune spat at him out of surprise.. He was fully dressed and totally innocent looking, Sakura decided in relief.

"Of course not!" Sakura said in unison with Shizune.

"I could, you know. In the right circumstances." Kakashi sounded disappointed at their lack of faith. "I mean, if she was _blind _drunk, and on the verge of passing out...?"

Sakura glanced at Shizune. "I dunno. Just seems unlikely, you know?" she said. After all. _Tsunade_.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." He sat beside Shizune, pulling his sandals off and dunking his feet in the water. "So what happened next?"

"So, once you lost, it turned out that Sakura had gotten post-traumatic stress disorder from the terrible, no good mission, where she didn't have to have sex because of Kakashi heroically crashing into the window and murdering the old guy before he could touch her, but the sight of so much blood—"

"Blood? You made me get psychological issues over _blood_?" Sakura wrinkled her nose. "I mean, sheesh, you may as well have me be traumatized because I saw ducklings fall down a grate." She crawled out of the water and plopped down on Shizune's other side, dripping all over the place. She should really have brought a towel.

"That would be very sad," Shizune replied solemnly, the corners of her eyes crinkling from a barely suppressed smile.

"I'd be moved by their plight," Kakashi added, sighing heavily and staring into the distance. "Poor ducklings..."

She stuck her tongue out. "Whatever. I obviously got over the whole blood thing."

"True. So what happened to Sakura next?"

"Well, you had screaming nightmares about seeing that fat pig die, and your family couldn't cope, so you had to move in with Kakashi—"

"And no one questioned that a thirteen year old girl was allowed to move in with me?" Kakashi interrupted. "That seems unlikely."

"The nurses loved it," Shizune replied. "Probably because I stole the story line straight from _The Young and The Merciless_, but hey, they thought it was romantic."

Sakura winced. "Did I have to be so insipid?"

"Well, during the course of your recovery through the power of love—"

All three giggled (in Kakashi's case it was more of a manly chuckle).

"—you managed to save Kakashi from his inner demons," Shizune said.

"My what?"

Sakura raised her eyebrows.

Kakashi sighed, rolling his eye. "Fine, you could have aided me in overcoming some small, insignificant inner demon that I had not yet dealt with. Potentially my fear of spiders."

"Wait, you really are afraid of spiders?"

"They're creepy," Kakashi said, shuddering delicately. "Why? What are you afraid of?"

"Monkeys," Sakura lied.

"The dark," Shizune said, probably lying as well.

There was a contemplative silence, where Sakura envisioned a monkey hidden in the dark, spiders crawling over it. She pursed her lips, realizing that it would, in fact, be pretty damn creepy.

"Still, saving someone from inner demons is pretty lame. Couldn't I save his life on the operating table?"

"And taking advantage of a thirteen-year-old is pretty disgusting. Could Sakura actually be my amazingly talented girlfriend from the future who travelled back in time so she could take advantage of me all over again?"

Sakura looked at him from the corner of her eye. Kakashi almost seemed serious.

Shizune caved first. "You know I was lying about spreading that rumour, right?"

"I believed you might have spread such a rumour until you got to the part about Tsunade selling me out as a whore," Sakura said.

"The first part?"

"Yeah. But it was good until then!"

"The hush-hush mission bit seemed reasonable," Kakashi said. "Terrible time to fall in love, but I've seen it happen."

Shizune ruffled Sakura's hair, then did Kakashi's for good measure. "Can't fool anyone," she sighed. "Though I should warn you, there are some very odd stories being spread about the two of you."

"Girlfriend from the future?" Sakura asked, because being a time traveller for love would be kind of cool.

"Nursed back from Death's door by the healing power of love?" Kakashi suggested, flipping open Icha Icha Paradise and pointing at an illustration inside.

Sakura saw a blurred glimpse of a mostly naked nurse before Kakashi spun the book around.

"Happily, no. Sakura? If a patient ever tries anything like that with you..." Shizune trailed off and gave her a significant nod.

Kakashi shifted, discreetly crossing his legs and tucking Icha Icha into his back pocket.

"I understand," Sakura said. It was really nice to know that she cared, even if the execution was slightly creepy. "Thanks."

"It's the least I can do," Shizune said, affectionately punching Sakura's shoulder. "So, did the two of you—"

"Kakashi!"

The yell startled all of them. Sakura nearly fell into the pond, but Shizune and Kakashi bounced to their feet, produced weaponry from nowhere and generally gave the impression of being ready to fight and win a war, if needed.

"Ah-Ha!" For one horrible second, Sakura thought it was Lee, seeking her out to ask for a date, then she recognized the much broader shoulders and the extra foot of height as belonging to Gai. "I had suspected I might find you here!" He stopped, planted his feet, and gave the three of them a thumbs up, his hand back-lit by the sun sparkling off his teeth.

Shizune and Kakashi relaxed, their senbon needles and kunai disappearing as mysteriously as they had appeared.

"Gai," Kakashi acknowledged, suddenly sounding listless and about one step away from falling asleep. He drew Icha Icha Paradise from his pocket, thumbing it open and peering at the pages disinterestedly.

"I apologize for interrupting your time with your _Youthful _Bride, but my student did not appear for training this Wonderful Spring Morning!"

Sakura stared, then glanced at Kakashi, wondering if she'd imagined the sharpness in Gai's voice. He was always so nice—Kakashi looked up, and she knew that she hadn't. "She is not my bride," Kakashi muttered.

"Ah, Gai?" Sakura said, breaking eye contact with Kakashi. "I broke Lee's leg when he challenged me yesterday—did you check at the hospital?"

"I heard of my Most Youthful Student's Victory!" Gai cheered, the bitterness in his words gone. "Though I am certain that you fought with Great Vigour, I am Proud that my student Triumphed!"

"He challenged her when she was drained of chakra, and still nearly lost," Kakashi said dully, flipping a page. His voice was apathetic, but the words were very nearly cruel.

Gai's face went still, his dark eyes focused and intent. "That will not change my pride. Sakura is a very talented young kunoichi. Lee's victory is _not _lessened by her lack of chakra. Choosing an appropriate place and time for a fight is just as important as fighting it." The words flowed smoothly, lacking his characteristic emphasis.

Sakura shifted closer to Shizune, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. The sunshine wasn't as warm anymore, and the tension in the clearing made her want to run.

"Capitalizing on an ally's weakness in an effort into manipulate their emotions is not honourable, Gai," Kakashi said, snapping his book shut with a flick of his fingers. "And worse, it tends to leave you with fewer allies."

"Lee, um—" Sakura bit her lip to keep from running when Kakashi and Gai looked at her. She didn't know what was going on—she'd thought they were friends—but if tensions got any higher, a fight was going to break out. "I'm not _that_mad at him," Lee was still an ally, and she'd be pleased to have him on her side in a fight. "Did you check the hospital?"

"Indeed!" His face stretched into a wide grin, plastered over the frozen anger he'd shown earlier. "But I believe that something may be wrong—the receptionist indicated that he had not come in."

She had broken his leg. It wasn't exactly the kind of thing you could bandage up and grit your teeth about. "You checked his apartment?"

Gai nodded, his smile dropping away. "I did. I don't believe he made it home last night."

Kakashi had hit Lee. Punched him out of the way so he'd stop interfering with Sakura's efforts to heal herself. Sakura looked over at Kakashi, not wanting to bring it up, but fairly certain that she had to.

"Did you check the training grounds?" Shizune asked, standing. She brushed the dirt from the back of her robe. "He tends to ignore medical advice and common sense when he's upset."

Sakura nodded her agreement, because there was more than one reason Tsunade had her use Lee as a guinea pig. He nearly always had half-healed injuries that he was ignoring.

Would he have walked home on a broken leg, though? Lee wasn't stupid. Headstrong and stubborn, but not stupid.

"I checked those as well." Gai hesitated, not precisely at the dark, cold state he'd been in before, but still more solemn than she'd seen before. "Sakura, I do not mean to offend, but please, was he alright when you parted company last night?"

From the way Kakashi's eye widened, looking at Gai with something like guilt or shame, Sakura knew he was thinking the same thing she was.

"I...can't say," she said. "He punched my throat, and I couldn't breathe. I broke his leg, but it wasn't a bad break—I didn't twist or anything. I had to forfeit then because I didn't have enough chakra to heal myself and finish fighting him."

"Shit," Kakashi muttered, hanging his head. "Shit."

The look on Gai's face wasn't one she could quantify, or even understand. He stared at Kakashi when he asked, "And you...left him there?"

"Sakura?" Shizune prompted her, when Kakashi refused to respond. "What was Lee's condition? Broken leg? What else?"

"I hit him with a tree," Sakura said. "He might have had a concussion from that, I guess. I don't think I managed to land any other blows." She pulled her dress from the willow tree and yanked it over her head, then slid her feet into her sandals. "But—"

"Lee tried to help Sakura after he punched her. She was healing herself and he pulled her hands away," Kakashi interrupted her. "She couldn't breathe. I knocked him out of the way so she could finish healing her throat."

"How did you knock him out of the way?" Shizune asked. "Could he have been injured from that?"

Kakashi shook his head. "I..."

"He hit him hard enough that Lee went flying. I don't know how far, and I can't remember the direction," Sakura said, silently apologizing to Kakashi as she did so. "I'm sorry. I was really mad at him for challenging me, and I forgot to make sure he was okay after I got out of the hospital."

"West," Kakashi added. "He went west, toward the forest."

There was a quiet moment, where Gai and Shizune just looked at them. Sakura dug her thumb nail into her palm to keep from squirming.

They'd broken the rules, her and Kakashi. You were supposed to make sure your sparring partners were okay. There were public service announcements and posters and everything. It was the Buddy System.

Sakura didn't see Gai move, but it was hard to miss the way he'd grabbed Kakashi, lifting him by the collar of his shirt. "So help me, Kakashi, if Lee is dead, I will not stop until you are, too."

"Enough," Shizune snapped. "We don't have time for that. Lee's condition is unknown and Kakashi is the best tracker in the village."

Gai snarled and shook Kakashi, but set him down. "I can't believe I trusted you," he muttered, turned away.

He didn't see the way Kakashi paled, how even his hair seemed to droop as Gai walked away from him. Kakashi swayed gently in a non-existent wind, hands shoved deep in his pockets and shoulders sloped defensively forward.

"Sakura? How are your chakra stores?" Shizune asked, her face tight with some barely repressed emotion. "Will you be useful?"

She nodded. "I'm fine."

"Good. Kakashi, send one of your dogs to the hospital. We may need Tsunade."

"No." Kakashi shook his head. "I can't."

"You're low on chakra?" Shizune asked.

"My chakra stores are fine. My summons have...they don't come when I call, anymore." Kakashi cleared his throat. "It doesn't matter. I can still track."

"Good." Shizune bit her thumb, summoning a slug. "Head to the hospital," she ordered it. "Inform Tsunade that we will be coming in with Lee Rock, unknown injuries." The slug wiggled its antennae, and slid slowly...very, very slowly...toward Konoha. "Well? Lead on, Kakashi."

He nodded sharply, and started running, heading toward the training grounds they'd used yesterday.

* * *

Sakura stared at the three posts, trying to ignore the argument behind her. It was mostly Gai yelling at Kakashi and Shizune trying to calm him down. Sometimes Kakashi tried to say something, but Gai just talked over him, for the most part.

Kakashi was having trouble picking up the scent. Gai was furious at him. Sakura wasn't sure why, but she didn't think it was helping.

This was probably the worst mission she'd ever been on. It wasn't even a mission, really. Just them trying to find someone she kind of cared about, and hoping he wasn't dead. And know that, if Lee was dead, then it was her fault.

"Fuck you, Gai. I'm trying!" Kakashi snapped. "Back off and get away from the scent!"

Shizune said something and Gai quieted down.

The bugs in the trees hummed and buzzed, unaffected and uncaring. Sakura sighed, and wandered toward the trees. Kakashi was standing near them, holding too still to be hunting. "You look as miserable as I feel," she whispered, coming up beside him.

Kakashi swallowed and nodded. "It been a long time since I've used my own nose," he answered softly. "I...need to take my mask off."

"Oh?" Sakura asked, curious despite herself.

"Promise not to look?" he asked, staring into the trees like they held answers.

Disappointing, but not unexpected. "Cast henge," she suggested. "I promise I won't try to break it."

Kakashi's hands flew through the seals, and the familiar gossamer shimmer of an illusion skimmed over his face. Kakashi hooked his fingers over the hem of his mask and yanked it down.

It took her a second to look away from the places where his mouth and nose should have been. He'd cast an illusion of his mask as if it was his face, reformed it out of skin. "That's really creepy," she whispered.

"It's fantastic for scaring people," Kakashi murmured, hunching forward and sniffing a bush. "I've got it. Could you tell Shizune?"

Sakura nodded, and trotted toward Shizune. "Kakashi caught Lee's scent," she said, stopping when Shizune was planted firmly between her and Gai. He hadn't said a single cruel word to her, but Sakura was oddly afraid of him.

"Good. We'll follow from a distance," Shizune said. "Understand?"

Sakura said she did, but she suspected the words were meant for Gai.

* * *

Kakashi had dropped to his hands and feet, running across the forest floor in an odd, bounding gait, pausing brief moments to sniff piles of leaves and the trunks of trees.

Gai hadn't said a word since they'd left the clearing and neither had Shizune. Sakura hadn't either, mostly because she didn't have the faintest clue what to say.

A broken tree spotted with blood—not much, but enough to make Sakura feel sick to her stomach—had taken Kakashi from the straight line he'd been running, and sent him charging north.

New spring growth tangled and ripped at her feet, the only sound in the quiet forest. Gai, Shizune and Kakashi made no noise, like ghosts on the run. Sakura could be as silent if she chose, but it drained her chakra, which she hoped she would need.

Kakashi howled. It was fucking_ loud_after a half hour of running without words, and it rang through the trees like pealing temple bells. Sakura jumped and nearly tripped, catching herself at the last moment.

"Lee?" Gai called, his footsteps suddenly crashing through the undergrowth, stomping on twigs, kicking through leaves.

The next ten seconds were some of the most stressful she'd ever experienced—Sakura saw Kakashi, still maskless and faceless, staring into the canopy of a tree, at torn scraps of green fabric and tanned skin. She could see his hand. Blood was smeared over the palm, dark and dried.

"Lee?" she called, uselessly, because if he hadn't heard Kakashi, then he obviously wasn't awake. Or he was dead. That was also possible. If he hadn't landed right, or she'd given him a concussion...

Kakashi tugged his mask over his face, and the glimmer of henge disappeared. "He's alive," he said. "He climbed the tree this morning. Has not moved since."

Shizune started walking up the tree and Sakura followed, watching the swollen, dangling hand for any sign of movement. Lee was so still, like the corpses in the morgue, and Kakashi could be wrong. He could have died while she played in the water, not even thinking of him, not _remembering_—

"His pulse is steady," Shizune confirmed. "Sakura?"

Lee was sprawled in a nest of branches, the kind border scouts built to sleep in. His green jumpsuit was ripped and torn, blood smeared over the skin underneath in streaks and trails. His leg...Lee must have landed on it. He'd wrapped it with bandages, but the bulge to the side and the dark red-brown stain told her that the bone had pierced skin.

Sakura cast a diagnostic jutsu. Lee was a patchwork of old injuries, but scars were easily separated from fresh scrapes—and they were mostly scrapes. "He's got a lot of scrapes, and he does have a concussion," she confirmed, fear draining out over her, replaced by relief so strong that it nearly hurt. "Compound fracture of his right leg, and dehydration, but his back and neck are fine."

Shizune nodded. "I'll handle the concussion. You take care of the rest."

"Yes," Sakura said, forming the seals that would allow her to straighten and heal his leg. Guilt made her match her chakra to his, then deaden the nerves so he wouldn't feel it.

She cut the bandages off, and grabbed his leg above and below the break. Lee hadn't managed to straighten the bone, but that was unsurprising. Muscle spasms had wracked his leg until the bone may as well have been encased in steel. She burnt the incipient infection from his wound, pleased to see that Lee had cleaned the bone before binding it.

Sakura took a deep breath, her chakra buzzing in mimicry of Lee's frenetic, lively energy, and pulled. She didn't dare reinforce her strength. Chakra enhanced, Sakura was strong enough to rip a person limb from limb.

Bone scraped on bone, the vibrations traveling through her hands and shivering in her elbows. Lee's body was strong, and it resisted her attempts to set the bone until sweat dribbled down her face.

Sakura bit her lip, and dragged the bone apart, gently enough that she would not tear him apart, firmly enough to put him together. The ends came together and Sakura wrapped a binding of chakra around the break, splinting it under his skin. It would wear off in a couple of hours, but they'd be in Konoha by then.

Shizune was still working. Sakura watched the vivid green glow around Lee's head for a second, nameless anxiety crawling in her chest. Concussions were a dime a dozen among ninja, and there were hundreds of jutsu to relieve pressure on the brain, heal damage, and revive dying tissue.

Shizune wasn't using them, though. Like Tsunade, she preferred to use her chakra directly, replacing medical jutsu with excruciatingly thorough chakra control and encyclopaedic knowledge of the human body. Sakura could do the same, and often did, but her chakra was like scalpels compared to their whisper-thin needles.

"You've set his leg?" Shizune asked, dropping her hand from Lee's temples.

"Yes." Sakura sealed the wound his bone had protruded from, focusing to grow new flesh rather than scar tissue. "His concussion?"

"Gone. He's fine." Shizune stretched, cracking her back. "We were lucky. His injuries could have been much worse."

Sakura nodded, wordless. She could have killed him with her carelessness. "He's asleep then?"

"Waking," Shizune said. "You can come closer, if you'd like."

Gai dropped from the branches over their heads, landing at Lee's side. "He is well?"

"He'll survive unharmed," Shizune said. "It will probably take a month for his leg to heal, though."

Gai seemed less cold, the calculating look gone from his face. He smiled. "I thank you for your aid!"

"You're welcome," Shizune chuckled, looking Gai over. "You'll carry him down?"

"Gai?" Lee stirred, waking. "Are you there?"

"Indeed, my Most Youthful Student! It is I, the Blue Beast of Konoha, by your side!"

Lee smiled, his eyes half-closed and confused. "I knew you'd come."

"When you failed to appear by five, I knew Something Was Wrong!" Gai declared, gathering Lee into his arms. "I spent the day seeking you, but Failed to find clues as to your whereabouts until I spoke to Sakura and Kakashi!"

"Sakura...?" Lee mumbled, clinging to Gai's neck at he carried him down the tree. "Is she okay? I hit her..."

"I'm fine," Sakura said. "Tsunade fixed it in about ten seconds."

Lee's eyes popped open, and he peered around Gai's shoulder. "Sakura! You came for me?"

Sakura paused, then kept walking down the tree trunk. She felt like she was about to kick a puppy. "I...it was my fault. I didn't even realize you were gone until Gai told us." She stepped from the tree to the ground, ignoring the tiny rush of vertigo. "I'm so sorry, Lee. I should have made sure you'd made it to the hospital last night."

"Weren't you out of chakra?" Lee asked her.

"Yeah." Sakura shrugged. She hadn't gone to bed with chakra left over in months.

"And I hit you pretty hard."

"I told you, Tsunade fixed it!" Sakura said in exasperation. "Lee, will you just accept my apology?"

Lee grinned at her, and it was different than his usual smiles. Boyish, and damn pleased with himself.

Sakura trotted at Gai's side, barely noticing his soft huff of laughter. "Lee?"

"Apology accepted. You are forgiven for being tired and forgetful after using all your chakra, being punched in the throat, and being healed by Tsunade. Where would you like to go on our first date?"

She nearly ran into a tree. "What—Lee?" Was that sarcasm? Did Lee even know how to be sarcastic?

"Ah! My Dear Student! I shall race to the Hospital with you in twenty minutes or do five hundred push ups!" Gai shouted. He launched off the forest floor, leaping forward so fast that she barely saw him move, and disappeared into the deepening shadows.

Sakura slowed down, then stopped. Lee wasn't...he didn't...

"You know, Gai's pretty cute," Shizune said, jolting Sakura out of her stupor. "Do you know if he's single?"

"What?" Sakura asked, shaking herself. It must have been her imagination. "Are you joking?"

Shizune shrugged. "I've never really spoken to him before, but it looks like he's loyal, good with kids, and, _damn_, If he's training that kid, can you imagine what he must look like under that jumpsuit?"

"It's still a jumpsuit...wait, what are you talking about? What does Lee have to do with Gai?"

Shizune snorted. "Oh come on, don't tell me you didn't check him out when you were healing him. That jumpsuit barely covered him."

"I...really didn't. Shizune, did you see the _eyebrows_? Though it is kind of dark." Sakura started walking toward Konoha. "Maybe you need your eyesight checked?"

"I thought they were very manly," Shizune mused. "You really didn't notice how ripped Lee is?"

"Kakashi's better." Sakura blushed bright red, but didn't take it back. Lee was...okay, he was pretty good looking, if you didn't count his face. It wasn't like Sakura didn't know that. But Kakashi had, like, mythical levels of hotness.

Shizune giggled. "Sticking by your fiancé?"

"I've still got to talk to him about that..." Sakura looked back. "Where'd he go, anyway?"


	9. Hey Pretty Baby

**Chapter Nine - Hey Pretty Baby, You're Almost Half My Age**

"Look, have you seen him or not?" Sakura demanded, dragging her hand through her hair, and shaking off the strands that clung to it.

"Did you get in a fight?" The jonin's senbon twisted, rolling between his teeth. Sakura heard the metal clicking on enamel.

"For the last time, _no_. We were supposed to meet up, but I forgot to set a time or place, so I'm looking for him." From the way he looked at her, the excuse sounded as weak to him as it did to her.

"Huh. Sorry, can't help you. Haven't seen him in weeks." He was definitely the same jonin who'd been watching Kakashi last night. Same bandana, same stupid senbon, same hair.

"Liar. You saw him yesterday," Sakura said, too peeved to bother with politeness. She slipped around him, heading back toward the main road.

"Wait," he said. "Look, Kakashi's a private kind of person. If he doesn't want to be found, you're better off not finding him, if you catch my drift."

"If he doesn't want to be found, I sincerely doubt that I'll manage to find him," she snapped back.

The jonin chuckled. "Good point. His apartment is at—"

"Fucking seriously? You think I don't know where he lives?" Sakura clenched her fists, then loosened them. Shouting at jonin was silly. She took a deep breath, and let it hiss out from between her teeth. "That was the first place I tried."

"No answer?" he asked, casually shifting to block off her exit.

"His next door neighbour started freaking out, but other than that, no." Sakura looked to the skyline, seeking out the familiar silhouettes of ANBU. There were four close enough to hear if she screamed. If she ran up the wall...

"Calm down. I'm just wondering why I saw the Copy-Nin heading in the general direction of his apartment, looking like someone kicked his puppy." He slouched against the wall and added, "Happened about an hour ago. Maybe an hour and a half."

Sakura paused. He seemed sincere—or at the very least, not blatantly lying—and the timing was good. "You did?"

"Yep. So, did you break up?" The senbon twitched eagerly, and the jonin's brown eyes sparkled.

"No." You couldn't break up if you were never together. "He was just...there was this thing. With...yeah. And when I turned around, he was gone, and now I'm worried because he looked—" Sakura shook herself. This guy totally didn't need to know that. "Thanks."

"You don't say..." He plucked the senbon from his lips. "And what was this thing?"

"You know, Shizune was there," Sakura said. "And she's at the hospital. With Lee. Maybe you should ask her?" Gossip-trap baited...

A gleam of interest entered the jonin's eyes. "Don't mind if I do," he purred. "And I maybe got the direction wrong, first time. Might have actually seen him heading toward the Hokage's Monument, yeah?" Bait taken.

He shifted away from the wall, suddenly closer, taller.

"I—yes." Sakura stumbled over her words, feeling like she was sliding down a steep slope, her mind at the top and the rest of her falling away. He smelled like hot tea, and nothing at all like tea. She had no idea why her mind made the comparison.

He laughed. "You're welcome, kid."

And then he was gone.

Sakura sorted out her galloping heart, setting it firmly back in its place. Sometimes, she really hated jonin. "Right. Hokage's Monument," she muttered. She shook her hands, then rubbed them against her shirt, trying to get rid of the strange, ant-like feeling that was crawling through them.

She didn't know why he would head toward the Hokage's Monument.

The view was nice from so high up—

Sakura broke into a run.

* * *

There were no lights on the monument. On Remembrance Night the peak would be decorated with paper lanterns and pyres to burn messages for the dead, but that wouldn't happen again for another three months.

Sakura had to cling to the wall with chakra to keep from falling off the narrow path up, and squint in the faint moonlight to see.

In the distance, near where the fourth's head was, she thought she saw a light. Dim and flickering, it might have been her imagination, or it might have been fireflies. Sakura changed her course, climbing up the side of the mountain.

"Sakura?"

It was Kakashi's voice, and for a second Sakura was too relieved to reply.

"What are you doing here?"

She pulled herself over the edge of the cliff before replying. "You still owe me dinner," she said. Kakashi looked like he'd been carved from stone, the color drained from him by the moonlight.

"Oh." He wandered closer. "It's kind of late."

"It's not that late," Sakura protested. "It's only...uh, like eight or something. We can still hang out, right?"

Kakashi nodded. "If you want."

"Are you okay? You sound tired." _It isn't prying_, she thought. She had a mission.

"I'm fine," he said. "Is Lee okay?"

"He will be." Sakura shrugged, unable to say that it wasn't that bad, but wishing that she could.

Kakashi stood beside her, looking down the front of the monument. "Will he still be in the hospital tomorrow?"

"Probably. It's easier to keep him overnight while the cast sets."

"I should apologise."

"He'll forgive you. Lee always does." She sat cross-legged on the cold rock, her sandals sliding over the dew-slick moss. "I'll come with you, if you want."

He sat down beside her, almost close enough to touch. "That would be okay," he muttered, looking away. "If you have the time?"

"If you wanted, we could meet up after so I could, like, heal you. More." She really needed to finish reading his file. Sakura straightened the hem of her shirt, then twisted it around her fingers.

Kakashi drew his knees up toward his chest. "You...when we were at your training grounds..." He glanced at her, then looked away. "Do you remember when Shizune—?"

"The rumour?" She was bright red with embarrassment, and a little ashamed by it. Tsunade wouldn't blush.

"The...yes. That." On the upside, Kakashi sounded just as uncomfortable as she was. "You found out? About it? You know?"

"Yeah." Sakura turned and looked over at the lights of Konoha. It was pretty from so high up. "I kind of...well, I fed it. A bit."

Kakashi didn't say anything.

"Okay, a lot. They offered to buy me lunch, it wasn't my fault!"

Kakashi nodded. "That's reasonable." He ran a nail under the metal plate of his glove. "We could break up."

It was a perfectly logical suggestion. Sakura looked out over the village lights and pretended she hadn't heard.

"Fake break up, because it's not like we're actually engaged," he added.

"Technically we are," Sakura said, too fast. "It was Tsunade who started it. She witnessed you...asking." Sakura shivered, her eyes fluttering shut. "And she decided to record it, so, yeah. We are _legally_ engaged."

"Really?" he asked, sounding startled. "I thought—don't we have to sign things?"

"Tsunade's the Hokage," Sakura said, "and she heard us enter a verbal contract. It's all perfectly legal." Mostly because Sakura hadn't protested when Tsunade had brought it up, but it was within the limits of the Hokage's power.

"I see."

The hot twist of misery in her chest was probably heartburn. "Yeah." Sakura shivered, tucking her hands under her arms. There was a snag on her thumbnail. "Did you...do you—"

"It might take a while to figure out how to get out of this without damaging your reputation," Kakashi said, words rushing over each other to get out. "We could try, of course, but a three day engagement doesn't look very good."

"People would say nasty things about us, even if we told the truth," Sakura pointed out. "And it would be much harder to be friends."

"That's right," Kakashi said. "And it's not like it's harming anyone, right?"

"Not unless you have a girlfriend," Sakura said, then flinched, because what if he did? And girlfriend was awfully presumptuous. He could be gay, and that would be okay, but assuming that he'd have a girlfriend might make him feel like it wasn't. She jerked her thumb away from her mouth before she could gnaw the nail down to the quick. "Or a boyfriend," she added, feeling hopelessly juvenile.

"No—neither," Kakashi said, and the rushed pace of his voice slowed and flattened. "I have no one."

"Same," Sakura said. The words weren't quite right, and she almost clarified, but the sentiment rang true.

"Lee is no one?" Kakashi's eye curved into a smile that felt strangely fake.

She bit back a dozen cruel agreements, because she had bet her politeness on that fight. "He is a good person. But he is not my boyfriend." Sakura almost added that Lee was not even her friend, but thought better of it.

"And Tsunade is no one?"

"She is my teacher," Sakura pointed out. "Not my girlfriend—that sounds so wrong. She'd be, like, a significant other instead of a girlfriend, if she was mine, but she's not."

Kakashi laughed. "The most significant other you could ever have."

"Yeah." Sakura was only a touch wistful. Tsunade would never look at her like that and Sakura didn't want her to, but if Tsunade ever _did_...Sakura sighed.

"And Shizune?"

Kakashi had to know that Shizune would never see Sakura like that.

"You're not asking about significant others, are you?" Sakura asked, glancing over. He met her eyes for a fleeting second, then looked away.

"No."

"Do you really feel so alone?" Sakura shifted until her knee touched Kakashi's leg. He jolted, but did not move.

"I'm considering faking an engagement to my underage former student for the attention it would get me." There was a tightness to his words, a carefully hidden message under the surface.

Sakura hated carefully hidden messages. They inevitably blew up in her face and got her sent to the T & I department. "I'm considering faking an engagement to my friend," she said. "I'd probably do it for the food, but I think it might be fun, too."

"Fun?"

"It was a really good lunch," Sakura said. "Better than I've had in months."

"I got dinner from Genma by refusing to reveal details," Kakashi admitted. "It was free. I like free food."

"Yeah, me too." The point where her knee touched his leg was warm, sending a strange tension crawling up her thigh, like electricity in her nerves. She could tell that Kakashi wasn't using chakra, but it felt like he was causing a chemical reaction in her blood.

"Would you mind?" Kakashi asked.

"What?" The slow current under her skin was incredibly distracting. Sakura flexed her toes, hooking them over the edge of her sandals. They were getting too small. She needed to buy new ones.

"If we—I just let it stand. Just let people think what they want." Kakashi's hand came up in an aborted gesture, then fell back down to his side. "It would be easier. We might get a few more free lunches, too."

"No, of course not." She smiled at him, and pulled her hair back into one hand, letting the night air cool her neck. "I think I've implied or outright stated that we are engaged in front of at least a dozen different people, so yes, this is _way _easier."

He muffled his laugh with a hand, then flopped backward into a shallow hollow formed by the Yondaime's hair. It pulled his leg away from Sakura's, ending the strange tightness crawling over her skin.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sakura asked, turning over to lie on her belly beside him. The moonlight seemed brighter, now that her eyes had adjusted, and the soft slopes and angles of Kakashi's mask were as clear as his smile. She grinned back, her cheeks aching from how real it felt.

"Nothing," he insisted.

"It had to have been something," Sakura said. "You laughed."

Kakashi paused for a long moment before he responded. "I did the same thing. And then I felt very bad about it."

Sakura remembered the ring, and almost told him about it. "I—I felt bad too, when I remembered that the rumour was about us and not me." She'd tell him about the ring some other time, when she was sure he'd find it funny instead of creepy.

"I'm glad it wasn't just me," Kakashi said, surprisingly earnest. "I usually don't like rumours, because they're impossible to break, but this one was just so fun—" he cleared his throat, "—so good that I couldn't resist."

She was incredibly grateful that he hadn't resisted. It would have been too awkward to live with if he had.

"So how does this work?" Kakakshi asked. "Is it different from just being friends?"

"I don't know that it would be a good idea to act differently," Sakura replied. "Shizune would kill us if we actually did anything." She waved her hand in an attempt to clarify that 'anything' meant sexual things, not ordinary things, and that by 'us', Sakura meant Kakashi. "Or Tsunade would."

He shifted until he was looking directly at her, his eye glittering in the moonlight. "I wouldn't—You know that, right? I would never do anything to you."

"Duh," Sakura replied, caught between gratitude and regret. "I know that, and so does...well, everyone who matters." Had the rumour been about her and anyone else, she wouldn't have allowed it to spread.

There was a long silence, where he looked up at the sky, and then Kakashi hummed, his eye drifting shut. "If we are friends—"

"We are," Sakura interrupted. "No take-backs."

A tightness she hadn't noticed eased out of his shoulders. "Then we should do friend things. The kind that Shizune won't kill us for."

That covered a lot of ground. "Like...?" Sakura prompted him. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten in ages, but she ignored it in favour of watching Kakashi.

"Dinner?" he offered, his eye opening slightly to watch her.

_Two _good meals in one day? Sakura felt like a cat in a canary shop. "Okay!" She scrambled to her feet, then stopped, suspicions rising from her genin days. "You're buying, right?"

He blinked. "You mean you won't buy me dinner?"

"Hey, you asked me out!" Sakura protested. "That means you're supposed to pay!"

"It does?" Kakashi asked. "The things you learn..."

He jumped to his feet and brushed an invisible coat of dust from his pants. "Do you want to get barbeque?"

"Are you paying?" she asked again, because he hadn't confirmed, and her next pay check wasn't until the fifteenth.

"Fine, fine." He rolled his eye elaborately, a glint of black and pale grey in the moonlight. "I will buy you dinner. Unless we con someone into buying it for us."

"Do you have anyone in mind?" Sakura asked, placing herself between him and the edge.

"I might." He backed up obligingly, heading toward the path. "But Sakura?"

"Yes?"

"I wasn't going to jump. I just wanted to see the sky."

Her smile was stiff, and probably didn't look much like a smile. "I was scared for you," she answered. "It might not have been justified, but you looked so sad..." She wondered if she should ask why Gai had been so angry, or if that was too private.

His hand brushed against hers. "I was," he admitted. "But mostly I was just worried about Lee."

"Why didn't you stick around?" Sakura tapped her knuckles against his, timing it so it could look like a coincidence if he wanted to ignore it.

Kakashi's pinkie hooked around her own, linking their hands in a tenuous bond. "Gai told me to leave."

"Oh." She hadn't held anyone's hand since she was a child, almost before she entered the Academy. It felt strange. "Do you want to talk about that—him?" _I thought he was your friend,_ she didn't say, because Sakura was well acquainted with how easily friends stopped being friends.

"Not really." Another calloused finger wrapped around her pinkie.

"Okay."

* * *

The waiter passed by their table for the fifth time in seven minutes, balancing a tray of drinks on one hand. She looked familiar, and Sakura wondered if she'd been in the Academy with her.

"Do you think we should go?" Kakashi asked, pulling out his battered wallet.

"It is getting late," Sakura agreed reluctantly. The clock above the bar told her that it was past eleven, and the customers had long since switched from eating to drinking.

Kakashi pulled a few well-worn bills from his wallet, nearly dislodging a receipt—

Her cheeks prickled with heat, and Sakura wondered how odd it would look if she tried to snatch that receipt. It might not even be the one she'd written on, and it would definitely serve to remind Kakashi about the little piece of paper with her secrets on it—Sakura took a deep breath and tore her gaze away.

There was nothing incriminating on that receipt. So what if he knew he was her hero? Kakashi wouldn't mock her for that. She was almost certain of it.

"Are you okay?" Kakashi asked, slipping the money under the bill, and palming the rest of the mints.

"I'm fine." She squirmed out of the booth, her skin catching a bit on the vinyl. "It's past my bedtime anyway," she joked.

"Mine too," he said, sliding out far more gracefully than she had. "I didn't realize how long we were here."

"Yeah." A moment passed, and they both started walking toward the exit.

"Walk you home?" she offered as she passed through the restaurant's glass doors. The streets were dim and empty, and she didn't want to go back to her apartment yet.

"Aren't I the one who should offer?" Kakashi asked, pausing slightly.

Sakura frowned. "Why can't I?" Had she missed something?

He shifted his weight, a faint sign of uncertainty. "I'm not certain. I thought, perhaps..."

She waited, holding still in some instinctive desire not to startle him.

"...that it was how this was done?" he questioned her, his voice lilting up into a query.

"I think that people walk each other home," Sakura mused. "But I don't think it depends on who bought dinner or anything."

"In that case, I'd appreciate your company." Kakashi relaxed suddenly, a good humoured smile creasing the corner of his eye. He had a very expressive eye.

This time, his hand only tapped hers once before Sakura tangled their fingers together, loose enough that they could both pull away if someone attacked. A faintly giddy thrill coursed through her, and she smiled at Kakashi, then looked away before he could notice.

Sakura wondered if this was friendship or a fake engagement that they were acting out, then tucked the thought away. It didn't matter.

* * *

"Lee will probably be released around ten in the morning, so if you want to see him you'll need to come in before then," Sakura warned Kakashi, pausing in front of his apartment door.

He nodded, fishing his keys from his jonin vest and sliding them silently into the lock. "Will you be very busy?" he asked, just barely above a whisper.

She dropped her voice, following his lead out of habit. "I'll be working in the emergency room until noon. I can get someone to take over for me, though."

Kakashi jimmied the lock open, and opened the door with stealth that wouldn't be out of place on an S-ranked mission. "Thank you for walking me home," he murmured, staring at a spot a few inches to the left of her eyes, his skin lit with a hint of the delicate pink blush that had covered his entire body—

Sakura slammed the breaks on that thought. "You're welcome—"

"You think I can't hear you, boy?" The harsh caw caught Sakura entirely off guard, sending a bright pulse of adrenaline shooting through her blood. "Sneaking in like a lumbering oaf!"

Kakashi grimaced, and whispered, "You should go."

"Inconsiderate! That's what you are! You're an inconsiderate cat murderer!"

"What the hell?" Sakura whispered back, waving her hand at his neighbour's apartment. It was the same old woman who'd gone on a huge rant about Kakashi when she'd knocked on his door earlier. "She does this all the time?"

"A dog killed her cat, and she thinks that it was one of mine," Kakashi muttered, the cute pink blush gone, and replaced with a vexed look.

"Why haven't you complained to your landlord?" Sakura hissed back.

"My Hidaki is a good boy!" the woman screeched.

"Is Hidaki the cat?" Sakura asked, casting a dubious glance at the door next to his.

"No, he's my landlord. She's his mother."

"You think I can't hear you, skittering around like rats in the dark?"

"She can hear us?" Sakura mouthed, surprised and kind of embarrassed.

Kakashi nodded again, and eased his door open. _Talk tomorrow? _he signed.

"Going inside to touch yourself in the dark, you little pervert?" The old woman was almost louder than Tsunade in a rage, Sakura noted through the hazy cast of embarrassment colouring her perceptions.

Kakashi looked utterly appalled before he closed his eye and waved Sakura away. _Tomorrow, _he signed again, then pressed a finger to his lips in the sign for silence.

Sakura nodded, and snuck away, creeping down the stairs to the street, Kakashi's neighbour's ranting slowly growing quieter with distance.

* * *

"Kakashi!" Sakura nearly spilt her coffee. "What—" she checked the clock, just to be sure. "It's eight in the morning."

"Yes?" He ducked into the staff room, ignoring the 'staff only' sign and the group of nurses staring at him.

"Naruto once bet me that you only exist from ten o'clock to midnight," Sakura said, setting her coffee down and running a hand through her hair.

"Did you win the bet?" Kakashi asked. There was a faint shadow under his eye and his hair drooped a little at the ends.

"Of course. I won it the first time we had an overnight mission." Sakura poured a bit more creamer into her cup, and picked it back up again. "So?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you here to visit Lee?"

The nurses in the corner erupted in a frenzy of hushed whispers, and Sakura wondered just how far along the rumour mill was. They knew about Lee challenging her—Sakura had told them yesterday—but did they know about her and Kakashi forgetting about Lee and leaving him to—

"Yes." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "Are you busy?"

"No, you caught me on my break. I've still got twenty minutes left." She swallowed the dregs of her cup and put it in the sink. "I'll show you where he is."

"Thank you." He slouched back into the hallway, every inch of him shouting gloom.

Sakura trotted to his side, and directed him into one of the many emergency stairwells. "Are you okay? And what the hell was up with your neighbour?"

"She's a former elite jonin who hates me," Kakashi said, shrugging. "She's seventy-two years old, and disgustingly healthy."

"Yeah, but why don't you move?" Sakura couldn't think of a single reason to stay next to someone so insane unless she actually liked them.

Kakashi shrugged again. "I've always lived there. So where's Lee's room?"

"He's upstairs," Sakura replied, leading Kakashi up to the third floor. "But seriously...does she do that all the time?"

"Yes." He flipped open Icha Icha Paradise, but didn't start reading. "I've almost gotten used to it."

"Liar," Sakura said, the word calling up memories drawn to the surface by Kakashi's presence. "Come on. Lee's been chomping at the bit since I told him that you were coming."

Kakashi hesitated, a faint hitch in his stride that she almost didn't notice. "Is he angry?"

"No. Like I told you, Lee's the kind of guy who'd apologize for getting in front of your kunai if you stabbed him."

"Sounds like a nice person," Kakashi said, his tone faintly puzzled. "Why...?"

"He's also the kind of guy who thinks that 'no' means try again next week," Sakura forced herself to smile as she said it, because she'd sworn to be polite to Lee.

Kakashi's chakra twisted in agitation, practically crackling. "He is pushy?"

"About me going out with him. Nothing more," Sakura reassured him. "Come on, his room's over here."

"Sakura!" Lee greeted her cheerfully as she opened the door. Someone must have nagged him into staying in bed, because he wasn't doing push-ups anymore. "Your Presence Brightens the Morning like You are the Very Brightest of Suns!

_What the fuck is that supposed to mean?_ wasn't polite. "Thank you Lee," Sakura said through gritted teeth. "Kakashi's here to see you."

Lee's smile was just as cheerful, but he seemed to wilt, suddenly looking far younger and almost fragile, wrapped in white bandages and covered in blue sheets. "Good Morning Kakashi!"

Kakashi leaned against the wall next to the door and peered into Icha Icha Paradise for a couple of seconds.

"How are you?" Lee asked, his gaze darting between her and Kakashi.

Icha Icha snapped shut, and Kakashi took a sharp breath, staring at the floor between his feet. "I apologize for my lack of attention toward your wellbeing which nearly resulted in your death." Kakashi placed both hands on his thighs and bowed deeply, stiff-backed and formal. "I deeply regret my actions."

Lee's eyebrows crawled toward each other, and he tilted his head slightly. "Does that mean that you will chaperone my dates with Sakura?"

Sakura bit her lip to keep from screaming '_don't do it, Kakashi!'_

"Yes, of course."

"Then I forgive you! Everyone makes mistakes!" Lee's teeth shone in the flickering fluorescent light.

Kakashi couldn't chaperone if he was too sick to move, Sakura realized suddenly. The sweat slicking her palms dried at that comforting thought, and she started mentally listing non-lethal poisons to pass the time.

"Thank you," Kakashi said, straightening up. "I will leave you to rest."

"Are you busy tonight?" Lee asked before Kakashi could slip out the door.

"He might not be, but I am," Sakura told Lee. "I've got training until late. Then I'm going to bed. _And _you shouldn't be up and walking around on that leg for at least another day or two."

Kakashi froze, caught between the room and the hallway.

"I'm not taking time off to go out with you," Sakura added.

"I would not ask you to desert your training!" Lee answered, eyes widening and hands flailing. "I am sorry! That was not my intention!" He paused for a long moment, studying her like she was a particularly tricky trap.

She hated how guilty he made her feel. "Look, I'm free on Friday night. If you can convince Kakashi to chaperone, I'll go out with you, so long as we aren't doing anything that might hurt your leg," Sakura said grudgingly.

He grinned, and there was a certain curve to his mouth that made her eyes linger, assessing. Sakura looked away, frowning. No matter what Shizune thought, Lee wasn't cute.

"Kakashi? Are you busy tomorrow night?" Lee asked, nearly vibrating with energy.

"No, I am not," Kakashi replied, sagging under her glare, but staying honest for some stupid reason.

"Will you chaperone a date between Sakura and I?" His eyebrows lifted hopefully, and he smiled pleadingly.

"Yes."

"Yosh!" Lee thrust his fist into the air, narrowly missing his IV stand. "I will think up the Greatest Date! This time, I will not Fail!"

"You do that," Sakura muttered. So long as he didn't try to catch a goldfish with his full strength and speed again, it would be an improvement on the last time. "Anyway, I'll talk to you later. I've got to get back to work."

Kakashi slipped out so fast that she barely saw him, and Sakura followed, shutting the door on Lee's happy monologue.

"You couldn't have lied?" she muttered to Kakashi.

"I nearly caused his death yesterday," Kakashi whispered back. "Did you really expect me to say 'no, I'm too busy'?"

Sakura sighed, because truthfully, she hadn't. How was it that so many of her carefully laid plans went off the rails? "Well at least we'll probably be able to eat out a couple of times on the gossip from this."

Kakashi's eyebrow rose. "Good point," he said, then chuckled evilly. "Can you mention the three-way date to the nurses? I need my target to find out from someone other than me."

_Three-way date? _Sakura's mind stuttered to a halt, its processing power devoured by all the implications—it wasn't _just _a date with Lee, it was also a date with Kakashi. Actually, it would be like dating two guys at once, which had to be worth double the points, reputation-wise. She cast aside her plan to poison Kakashi (just a little bit!). "That is a _great_ idea," she said fervently .

"What is?"

"We should let someone overhear us talking. Come on, the Emergency Room is great for that," Sakura said, shoving open the fire door to the ground floor.

"That _is_ less suspicious."

The double doors to the Emergency Room swung open under her hand, and Sakura forced her expression to be solemn instead of gleeful. "So I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Kakashi said, pulling Icha Icha from his kunai pouch. "Any idea where Lee's taking us?"

"Nope. He's...innovative." Sakura leaned against the reception desk. "And it's not like we could go back to the last place he took me to."

"Well, if he's anything like his teacher, I'm sure it'll be exciting." He peered at the page he'd opened his book to, then flipped forward five pages, and wandered toward the door.

_Was that enough to get the rumours flowing?_ Sakura wondered. Best not to chance it. She had her eye on some delicious dango for lunch. "Wear something nice!" she called after him.

"Only if you do," Kakashi replied, holding up two fingers in a tiny wave. He winked at her, and sauntered out the door.

"You're going out with Lee _and _Kakashi?" Emi squealed, launching herself over the desk with admirable speed for a civilian. "Tell me_ everything_!"

_Gossip no Jutsu, hell yeah!_


End file.
